Liquid computing

ABSTRACT

Liquid computing can include using a service bus to interact with a number of heterogeneous systems.

CLAIM OF PRIORITY

This application claims priority from the following co-pendingapplications, which are hereby incorporated in their entirety:

U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/573,354 entitled SYSTEM AND METHODFOR ENTERPRISE APPLICATION INTEGRATION BUS, by Matthew Mihic et al.,filed May 21, 2004 (Attorney Docket No. BEAS-1684US0).

U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/573,717 entitled LIQUID COMPUTING,by Alfred Chang et al., filed May 21, 2004 (Attorney Docket No.BEAS-1703US0).

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is related to the following co-pending applications:

U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/573,077 entitled MOBILE APPLICATIONSERVER by Bosworth et al., filed May 20, 2004 (Attorney Docket No.BEAS-01537US0).

U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/______, entitledOCCASIONALLY-CONNECTED APPLICATION SERVER, by Adam Bosworth et al.,filed May 4, 2004 (Attorney Docket No. BEAS-01537US10).

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains materialwhich is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentor the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and TrademarkOffice patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrightrights whatsoever.

FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE

The present disclosure relates generally to middleware for services and,more particularly, to a switching fabric having message processingcapabilities through which clients and services can communicate.

BACKGROUND

The need for enterprise software applications to work together with webbrowser-based front ends lead to the development of application servers.Application servers provide a framework for integrating front-end webapplications with back-end enterprise applications. Beyond simplyinvoking enterprise applications from applications servers, a need aroseto compose pieces of different enterprise applications into compositeapplications. One way this can be done is to expose an enterpriseapplication as a set of reusable services that other systems can access.However, enterprise applications are typically deployed in multipleapplication platforms and heterogeneous environments. These factors makethe composition effort proprietary and programming-driven, resulting inbrittle and expensive integrations. What is needed is an flexibleinfrastructure to dynamically compose services and handle anyincompatibilities that might arise between them.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 a is an illustration of a system in an embodiment.

FIG. 1 b is an illustration of a service bus architecture in accordanceto an embodiment.

FIG. 3 is an illustration of message processing pipelines in accordanceto an embodiment.

FIG. 4 is an illustration of pre and post pipeline message processing inaccordance to an embodiment.

FIG. 5 is an illustration of component architecture in accordance to anembodiment.

FIG. 6 a illustrates a message processing graph having a singlepipeline-pair node and a single routing node,

FIG. 6 b illustrates a message processing graph with a branching node inaccordance to an embodiment.

FIG. 7 is an illustration of error handling scopes in accordance to anembodiment.

FIG. 8 is an illustration of service providers in an embodiment.

FIG. 9 is an illustration of monitoring components in accordance to anembodiment.

FIG. 10 is an illustration of rule triggering mechanisms in accordanceto an embodiment.

FIG. 11 a illustrates an initial core state that contains components A,B, and C in accordance to an embodiment.

FIG. 11 b illustrates an update in session data in accordance to anembodiment.

FIGS. 12 a-c illustrate additional session scenarios in accordance to anembodiment.

FIGS. 13 a-c illustrate inconsistencies between a session view and acore state.

FIG. 14 is an illustration of update plan execution in accordance to anembodiment.

FIG. 15 a is an illustration of a successful update in accordance to anembodiment.

FIG. 15 b illustrates failure of an update due to an applicationexception.

FIG. 15 b illustrates failure of an update due to an server crash.

FIG. 16 illustrates one embodiment of a Liquid Computing system of thepresent invention.

FIG. 17 illustrates another embodiment of a Liquid Computing system ofthe present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The invention is illustrated by way of example and not by way oflimitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings in which likereferences indicate similar items. References to embodiments in thisdisclosure are not necessarily to the same embodiment, and suchreferences mean at least one. While specific implementations arediscussed, it is understood that this is done for illustrative purposes.A person skilled in the relevant art can recognize that other componentsand configurations may be used without departing from the scope andspirit of the invention.

In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth toprovide a thorough description of the invention. However, it can beapparent to one skilled in the art that the invention may be practicedwithout these specific details. In other instances, well-known featureshave not been described in detail so as not to obscure the invention.

With reference to FIG. 1 a and by way of illustration, the systemincludes a service bus 100 that represents a fusion of messagebrokering, web services, business-to-business (B2B) services gateway andservices management concepts into a combination centered around aruntime configuration information directory/repository 106 and console104. The service bus is an easy to use configuration-driven intermediarythat accomplishes (without limitation) the following efficiently andwith high availability, scalability and reliability:

Bridges the gap between what the message the sender 114 sends and whatthe receiver 116 expects in the area of envelope protocol, transportprotocol, security scheme, payload contents, one way andrequest/response paradigms, synchronous and asynchronous communication,point-to-point, and publish/subscribe.

Provides additional computing capability to perform tasks such as (butnot limited to) multi-destination publish, content based routing,authentication and authorization, and credential mapping.

Provides monitoring capability with metrics collection and display,alert displays, tracking event collection and use, message archiving andService Level Agreement (SLA) management.

FIG. 1 b is an illustration of a system in accordance to an embodiment.In one embodiment, the system includes a service bus 100 which can actas an intermediary between a client and a service. Those of skill in theart will appreciate that the present disclosure is not limited to ordependent upon any particular type of service or service technology.Many service types/technologies, including those that are known andthose that are yet to be developed, are fully within the scope andspirit of the present disclosure. Messages to the service bus arrive ona transport 108 and can be processed to determine, by way of a example,a destination to route and/or publish the message to, a transformationto perform on the message, and/or security processing. The message thenis sent out on transport 110 bound for a service or another service bus.In one embodiment, a response to the message can follow an inverse paththrough the service bus.

In one embodiment, the service bus can be implemented partially orwholly on an application server 102 such as WebLogic® Server, availablefrom BEA Systems, Inc. The system is driven by configuration information106 which can specified through the configuration/monitoring console 104which provides a user interface for creating, modifying and deletingconfiguration information. All aspects of the system are dynamicallyconfigurable. By way of a non-limiting example, a user interface caninclude one or more of the following: 1) a graphical user interface(GUI) rendered on a display device or projected onto a user's retina; 2)an ability to respond to sounds and/or voice commands; 3) an ability torespond to input from a remote control device (e.g., a cellulartelephone, a PDA, or other suitable remote control); 4) an ability torespond to gestures (e.g., facial and otherwise); 5) an ability torespond to commands from a process on the same or another computingdevice; and 6) an ability to respond to input from a computer mouseand/or keyboard. This disclosure is not limited to any particular userinterface. Those of skill in the art can recognize that many other userinterfaces are possible and fully within the scope and spirit of thisdisclosure.

In one embodiment and with reference to FIG. 2, the configurationinformation is distributed throughout an enterprise by an administrativeserver 112 to one or more managed servers hosting service buses. Inaspects of these embodiments, managed servers can be deployed inclusters as is well known in the art. Configuration information can beautomatically propagated to managed servers for fast local retrieval byservice buses. Monitoring metrics can be automatically collected fromall managed servers for aggregation and display on the console.

In one embodiment, service hosted by the service bus (“service proxies”)and services not hosted by the service bus (“external services”) butwhich are invoked by the service proxies are both modeled as services.Service proxies act as stand-ins for, or facades of, services (i.e.,external services and service proxies). By way of a non-limitingexample, a service can include:

A set of concrete interfaces called ports (also called endpoints), eachwith a transport address and associated configuration. In oneembodiment, the set of ports constitutes load balancing and failoveralternatives for the service and are identical in characteristics.

An optional abstract interface which in one embodiment is a definitionof the structure of message parts in the interface possibly broken downby operations.

A binding that defines the packaging of message parts in the abstractinterface to a concrete message and the binding of that message to thetransport.

Policies on Web Services Security (WSS) and Web Services ReliableMessaging (WS-RM), authorization policies, and actions needed to beperformed transparently by the binding layer (e.g., logging).

In one embodiment, a Web Services Description Language (WSDL)representation of the abstract interface, concrete interface and bindingis possible for Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) web services basedon Hypertext Transfer Protocol (Security) HTTP(S) or Java MessagingService (JMS) transports. In aspects of this embodiment, a WSDL resourceor an existing service could be used as a template for a definition of anew service's interface. Also supported are email, file, WS-RM and FileTransport Protocol (FTP) transports. In one embodiment, the service buscould periodically poll a file system directory to determine if a fileis ready for processing in the case of a file transport. The service buscan support request/response and one-way paradigms for HTTP and JMSasynchronous transports. It optionally supports ordered delivery ofmessages if the underlying transport supports it. In a furtherembodiment, service bus supports eXternal Markup Language (XML), non XML(structure described with MFL), binary, Multipurpose Internet MailExtensions (MIME) with attachments (email), and SOAP packaging.

A service/service proxy process can have multiple ports for the samebinding. These ports can be used as load balancing and fail overalternatives. A service/service proxy can define the load balancingpolicy to use for its ports. In one embodiment, the policies can includeround robin and random (weighted or not weighted). The ports serve asload balancing destinations but can also service as fail-overalternatives on failure. The two concepts are coupled together for ahigh-availability load balancing scheme.

A service proxy can also define the retry policies on failure and (forrequest/response) a timeout policy and security policies that apply tomessages in its interface. This can be specified at the service level(applies to all messages) or individual messages for the operations ofthe service.

In one embodiment, services are categorized by one or more categoryschemes. For example, categories can be key names and category valuescan be values for the key name. A service can have multiple values formultiple category name. Categories are useful for discovery purposes.There are a number of well-known ontologies (or category schemes) thatdefine the key name and allowed hierarchy of values. In aspects of thisembodiment, leaf values in a category hierarchy are used to categorizeservices. In one embodiment, a service consumer can be categorized forsearching. Service consumers can be an organization or an applicationand can send messages (or receive sync responses). In yet anotherembodiment, a service consumer is associated with credentials and istied to a user so it can belong to roles for authorization.

In one embodiment, a set of services can be provided by an organizationor an application called a service provider. Defining a provider for aservice is optional and there can have standalone services. For example,these can either be internal sub organizations in an enterprise orexternal partner organizations or even individual applications(semantics is up to the user). Also a service provider can becategorized like services for searching. A service provider can beassociated with credentials and could be tied to a user so it can belongto roles for authorization. Service providers can send and receivemessages.

In one embodiment, the implementation of a service proxy includes atleast one message processing pipeline definition. For example, this caninclude a definition of a request pipeline definition and a responsepipeline. Pipelines are message processing nodes that specify whatactions are performed on request messages to the service proxy beforeinvoking an external (or another proxy) service, and what processing isperformed on responses from the service invoked by the service proxybefore the service proxy returns a response to a client. Each pipelinecan include a sequence of stages. A stage implements a programmaticinterface and/or a protocol that is compatible with the pipeline.Messages fed into the pipelines are accompanied by a set of messagecontext variables (that includes variables that contain the messagecontents) that can be accessed or modified by the pipeline stages.

By way of illustration, common pipeline stages include:

A transformation stage allows flow control “if” structures to be nestedto select a transformation to be performed that affects the context. Aweb services callout or database lookup can be an alternative to an XMLQuery (XQuery) or Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT)transformation to set the output context variable.

A routing stage allows “if” structures and “case” structures to becombined (and nested) to define a single endpoint and operation to routethe message to. A set of transformations that affects context variablescan be defined before the message is published to each endpoint. A webservices callout or database lookup can be an alternative to an XQueryor XSLT transformation to set the context variable.

A publish stage allows “if” structures and “case” structures to becombined (and nested) to define the set of endpoints and operations topublish the message to. A set of transformations that affects contextvariables can be defined before the message is published to eachendpoint. A web services callout or database lookup can be analternative to an XQuery or XSLT transformation to set the contextvariable. The changes to the context is isolated to each publishedendpoint and does not affect subsequent processing by the pipeline.

In one embodiment, WSS processing as well as authorization can beperformed in the binding layer.

A tracking stage allows writing a tracking record with user definedinformation so the tracking system can be used to search by a userdefined criteria.

An archiving stage writes the message to an archive for historical andrecord keeping purposes.

A logging stage allows logging of selected context to the system log fordebugging purposes.

A validation stage validates a document against an XML of MFL schema.

A custom stage that implements a programmatic interface and/or protocolthat is compatible with pipelines.

FIG. 3 is an illustration of message processing pipelines in accordanceto an embodiment. An operational pipeline can process a message based onan operation indicated by the contents of the message. In oneembodiment, the determination of the operation is performed through auser-selected criteria. Each pipeline can include one or more stages(e.g., 302, 304, 308, 310). A single service level request pipeline 300can branch out into a plurality of operational pipelines 306 and 312.The response processing starts with the relevant operation pipeline(314, 316) which then joins into a single service level responsepipeline 318. In one embodiment, in the case of one-way operations beinginvoked, the response pipeline is executed with an empty message. Thispermits a response to be constructed for the service proxy so bridgingbetween request/response and one-way operations is possible (e.g., theservice proxy input could be one-way while its output isrequest/response or vice versa). The service proxy either absorbs theresponse from the invoked service or generates one for the client.

In one embodiment, a context is shared across both the request pipelineand response pipeline, and other message processing nodes, and its valueincludes individual request/response messages. In aspects of thisembodiment, the context is a set of predefined XML variables. Newvariables can be added and deleted to the context dynamically. Thepredefined context variables have by way of a non-limiting example,information about the message, the transport headers, securityprincipals, the configuration information for the current service proxyand the configuration information for the primary routing andsubscription services invoked by the service proxy. In one embodiment,the context can be read and modified by XQuery/Xupdate expressions bythe stages.

By way of further illustration, the context can include the variables$header, $body and $attachments. These are wrapper variables thatcontain the SOAP headers, the SOAP body contents and the MIMEattachments respectively. The context gives the impression that allmessages are soap messages and non SOAP messages are mapped into thisparadigm. In the case of binary or MFL data, the XML element thatrepresents the document in $attachments or $body refers to the actualdocument with a unique identifier. In the case of SOAP RPC, the bodycontent is itself a wrapper element that contains the typed RPCparameters.

In one embodiment, the system has a built-in type system that isavailable for use if desired at design time. When creating an XQueryexpression in a condition or transformation at design time, the variablecan be declared to be of one or more types in an editor to assist ineasily creating the XQuery. In a further embodiment, the types can bespecified in XML schemas, MFLs or WSDL resources. This type declarationprocess is aware of the nature of the variable to be typed (is a wrapperfor elements of the types or the types themselves). It also providesassistance to access SOAP RPC parameters or documents in $body easily.

In one embodiment, a stage can have a sequence of steps to execute if anerror occurs in that stage. This sequence of steps constitute an errorpipeline or handler for that stage. In addition an error handler can bedefined for the whole pipeline or a whole service proxy. The lowestscoped error handler that exists is invoked on an error. This errorhandler allows the message to be published to an endpoint, formulate anerror response message to be returned to the invoker of the serviceproxy, log the message, continue after modifying the context, or raisean exception. Raising an exception can transfer control to the nexthigher scoped error pipeline.

FIG. 4 is an illustration of pre and post pipeline message processing inaccordance to an embodiment. The processing of a request consists ofinbound transport 402 processing, inbound binding layer 404 processing,pipeline execution 406, outbound binding layer 408 processing, andoutbound transport 410 processing. In aspects of these embodiments, thebinding layer automates some of the processing to be performed such asmapping the message to/from context variables, packaging andun-packaging messages and performing WSS security and authorization.Both primary routing destinations and publish destinations can operatein this paradigm. In one embodiment, after the primary routing endpointis invoked, the response pipeline processing follows a similar model. Inyet another illustration, a web services callout 420 from a pipelinestage goes through a binding layer 416 followed by the transport layer418. In one embodiment, the callout response follows the inverse path.

In one embodiment, users are security principals who can either behumans, organizations or processes. A user can either invoke userinterfaces (console user) or messaging interfaces (user modeled as aservice consumer or provider). A service consumer and provider can beassociated with a user for authentication of messages from thatprovider/consumer. A user can belong to a group and a group can alsobelong to a group. Groups and users can belong to roles, which are theunit to which access rights to resources are assigned. In oneembodiment, the resources, providers, consumers and services in thesystem can be organized into a set of projects, each with a hierarchy offolders not to avoid name conflicts but also provide a convenient way toorganize resources and services belonging to some department and searchfor them.

In one embodiment, the console supports task level authorization. By wayof illustration, a service bus console user or a process can operate inone or more of the following predefined roles:

The integration administrator is the service bus super user and can doanything.

The integration operator can use the console to monitor service busactivity, perform message tracking, and can suspend/resume services andchange their hours of operation.

The integration monitor has complete read access to everything and canexport any resource, service, provider, consumer, or project.

The integration deployer has complete read access to everything and cancreate, delete, edit, or import/export resources, services, providers,consumers, or projects.

The integration security administrator can read, create, delete, editACLs, credentials, keystores, users, groups, and roles.

In one embodiment, resources are reusable common definitions and/ordescriptions of processes/entities (e.g., configuration information forthat entity). Resources are typically used by multiple services and arestandardized definitions or descriptions across an enterprise ordepartment. Examples of resources are category schemes, MFL schemas, XSDschemas, XQuery maps, XSLT maps, WSDL interfaces, and WS-Policy files.Category Schemes define a single category name and a hierarchical set ofvalues for the category name. Services, providers and consumers can becategorized using a registered scheme. They can be categorized withmultiple leaf values for a category scheme or leaf values from multiplecategory scheme. In one embodiment, all resources in the system can belooked up by name. In yet another embodiment, resources can be looked upby applying search filters to category schemes.

Schemas describe types for primitive or structured data. MFL schemasdescribe types for non XML data. XML Schema describes types for XML. AnXML schema type can import or include other schema files. Transformationmaps describe the mapping between two types. XSLT maps describe mappingsfor XML data using the XSLT standard. XQuery maps describe the mappingsfor XML and non XML (MFL) data using the XQuery standard.

An WSDL interface is a template for a service interface and describesthe abstract interface of a service including the operations in thatinterface, and the types of message parts in the operation signature. Itoptionally also describes the binding of the message parts to themessage (packaging) and the binding of the message to the transport. Italso optionally describes the concrete interface of the service.

A WS-Policy describes security and reliable messaging policy. Itdescribes what should be signed or encrypted in a message using whatalgorithms. It also describes what authentication mechanism should beused for the message when received.

FIG. 5 is an illustration of component architecture in accordance to anembodiment. The service bus can be deployed on a single server that alsoserves as the admin server 502 or on a cluster of servers (e.g., acluster comprises of a clustered set of managed servers 500). A configframework component 504 can provide CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete)capabilities for configuration information along with object and fileintegrity protection, caching and indexing, referential integrity, andconfiguration propagation. The admin server can propagate theconfiguration information to the managed servers.

In one embodiment, task framework component 506 can provide operationalundo and serialization capabilities for tasks or composite tasks (taskof tasks), which are config operations consisting of multiple CRUDoperations on individual config objects. The unit of config propagationis a task and a task could involve execution of special code and couldinvolve deployment of EARs or WARs in a managed server (primarily usedfor automatic database or light weight webapp deploys for transports)and supports coarse-grained concurrency control (task execution isserialized).

In one embodiment, aggregation framework component 524 can provide thecapabilities to collect metrics and propagate them to the admin serverfor cluster wide aggregation. In one embodiment, the aggregated datagets coarser (in terms of duration), the older the data. For example forthe last hour, the aggregation interval is 5 minutes. Before that, forthe last day, the aggregation interval is 1 hour. Before that for thelast week, the aggregation interval is 1 day, etc.

In one embodiment, alert system 510 analyzes aggregated metrics todetermine if Service Level Agreement (SLA) rules are violated, andraises an alert if they are. In on embodiment, alert destinations can beemail, web service, WLI logger, queue, etc. (more can be added wherenecessary).

In one embodiment, the console user interface (UI) component 512 is JSPbased portlets that integrate with a portal. The console UI providessupport for both monitoring and configuration on the console.

In one embodiment, the external and service proxy config component 514defines the abstract, concrete, security and access policy and bindinginformation for a proxy or external service interface. Service proxiesare intermediaries hosted by the service bus server while externalservices are external endpoints to which messages are routed that residein some other server. For a service proxy, it defines the sequentialmessage processing performed by the service proxy for input and outputmessages based on a pipeline architecture. It also provides searchcapabilities when there are a large number of services.

The user and credential config component 516 can define both UI andmessaging users along with attributes, and credentials that go with thatuser in accordance to an embodiment. In aspects of this embodiment,users can be hierarchically grouped into groups, and groups and userscan belong to a role, which is granted access to a resource. Messagingusers can either be service consumers who can send messages or serviceproviders which provide services that send or receive messages.

In one embodiment, resource config component 518 can be used to defineshared resources such as (but not limited to) template WSDLs (WebServices Definition Language), WS security policies, schemas, ontologies(category schemes to classify services and service providers) andtransformation maps that can be leveraged by multiple services. It alsoprovides search capabilities when there is a large number of resources.

In one embodiment, the monitoring component 520 provides the monitoringUI for the service bus system to show alerts and metrics.

In one embodiment, the import/export component 522 allows movement ofservices and other resources between service bus installations. Design,Stage and Production are all separate vanilla service bus installations.Import allows specification of environment specific configurationparameters and the approach to use if the imported object already exists(replace or keep). It also allows resolution of unresolved references inan imported object by linking it to an existing object of the same type.

In one embodiment, the transport and transport SPI 526 componentprovides a framework to plug in new transports and also supportsHTTP(S), JMS, email, FTP, file, WS-RM (Web Services Reliable Messaging)and timer event transports out of the box. Wherever possible, streaming,reliability, message ordering and request/response and one-way messagesare supported.

In one embodiment, the pipeline runtime and stage SPI 528 componentprovides a framework to plug in new custom stages by the user andprovides the context management and message flow through the request andresponse pipelines in a service proxy.

In one embodiment, service proxy pipelines can interface with thetransport at either ends through a binding layer 530 that can handlemessage packaging, logging WSS processing and authorization based onpolicies defined with the service proxy (inbound) and invoked (outbound)external or service proxies.

In one embodiment, an endpoint has a Uniform Resource Identifier(URI)-based address. For example, a service is an inbound or outboundendpoint that is registered with a service directory. For example, itcan have an associated WSDL, security settings, etc. A router is a namedcollection of pipelines. A pipeline is a named sequence of stagesrepresenting a non-branching one-way processing path. A stage is auser-configured processing step such as Transformation, Routing, etc.

A pipeline is a message processing node that can be part of a messageprocessing graph. Below is a very basic overview of how messages flowthrough the system from an inbound endpoint (a service proxy) tooutbound endpoint (typically an external service or another serviceproxy):

-   -   Transport Layer→Binding Layer→Message Processing Graph→Binding        Layer →Transport Layer

In one embodiment, the message processing graph is where messageprocessing and manipulation can take place. Although the Binding andTransport layers primarily deal with communication and messagepacking/unpacking, message processing and manipulation can occur inthese layers as well.

In one embodiment, the transport layer is responsible for handlingcommunication with client and destination endpoints. It can support avariety of communication protocols, such as HTTP and JMS, and isresponsible for generating configuration information containing suchthings as the endpoint URI and any relevant transport headers. Withregards to message content, the transport layer primary deals with rawbytes in the form of input/output streams and transport-specific messageobjects such as instances of JMS Message classes. In another embodiment,the transport layer is simply for getting messages into and out of thesystem—it does not perform any manipulation of message content.

In one embodiment, the binding layer is primarily responsible forpacking and unpacking the message. It can also serve as the intermediarybetween the transport layer, which deals mostly with byte streams, andthe router, which can use a richer message context representation. Forperformance reasons, the binding layer can use on-demand processing toavoid unpacking a message and unmarshaling data until it is necessary.

In another embodiment, the binding layer is also where securityprocessing is performed. On the inbound side, security processing isdetermined by the configuration of the receiving service proxy. On theoutbound side, processing is determined by the configuration of thedestination service. In another embodiment, the binding layer isservice-specific and relies on configuration parameters to perform itstask.

In one embodiment, routers are responsible for implementing the requestand response logic of a service proxy. Request and response paths can beimplemented using one-way message processing pipeline nodes thatmanipulate the message content. Conditional execution is made possibleby using branching nodes to determine which of several pipeline paths tofollow. The request path typically ends with a routing node thatdispatches a request to another service or service proxy. The responsefrom that service initiates response path processing, after which aresponse may be sent back to the service proxy client. The responsetravels the reverse direction through the message processing graph.

In one embodiment, pipeline nodes can be typed into one of threecategories: request, response and error. Request pipelines are used forprocessing the request path of a router whereas response pipelines areused for processing the response path. Error pipelines are used as errorhandlers and are discussed in detail in a separate section below. Asidefrom indicating the pipeline's purpose, the type may be used to restrictwhich stages may appear in the pipeline. Any such restriction is left upto the individual stage implementation.

FIGS. 6 a and 6 b illustrate message processing graphs in accordance toan embodiment. As mentioned above, routers can implement therequest/response logic of a service proxy using message processingpipelines. The request and response pathways are created by pairingrequest and response pipeline nodes together (“pipeline pair node”) andorganizing them into a logical tree structure or message processinggraph. In one embodiment, a node implements a programmatic interfaceand/or protocol that is compatible with the message processing graph. Abranching node allows for conditional execution and routing nodes at theends of the branches perform any request/response dispatching. In oneembodiment, the message processing graph allows for a clear overview ofa service proxy's behavior, making both routing actions and branchingconditions explicit parts of the overall design, rather than buryingthem deep inside of a pipeline stage. A request message follows a pathin a first direction through the message processing graph. Theassociated response can travel a path in the reverse direction throughthe message processing graph.

In one embodiment, a message processing graph can include one or moreinstances of three top-level components (FIGS. 6 a-6 b):

-   -   A pipeline-pair node (“PP”).    -   A branching node (“BR”).    -   A routing node (“RT”).

FIG. 6 a illustrates a message processing graph having a singlepipeline-pair node 600 and a single routing node 602 which is configuredto forward messages to service 603. The pipeline pair node ties togethera single request and a single response pipeline nodes into one top-levelelement. In another embodiment, a pipeline-pair node may have one directdescendant in the message processing graph. During request messageprocessing, the request pipeline node can be executed when visiting apipeline-pair node. When reversing the path for response processing, theresponse pipeline node can be executed.

The routing node can be used to perform request/response communicationwith a service in accordance to an embodiment. In aspects of thisembodiment, the routing node represents the boundary between request andresponse processing for the service proxy. When the routing nodedispatches a request message, request processing is considered over.When the routing node receives a response message, response processingbegins. The routing node itself has support for conditional routing aswell as outbound and response transformations. Whether conditions appearinside the routing node or up in the message processing graph asbranching nodes is up to the user. In one embodiment, the routing nodedoes not have any descendants in the graph.

FIG. 6 b illustrates a message processing graph with a branching node inaccordance to an embodiment. Branching node 606 allows processing toproceed down exactly one of several possible paths 608. In aspects ofthese embodiments, branching can be driven by a simple lookup table witheach branch tagged with a simple but unique string value. A variable inthe message context can be designated as the lookup variable for thatnode, and its value can be used to determine which branch to follow. Ifno branch matches the value of the lookup variable, then a defaultbranch is followed. Setting the value of the lookup variable can be donebefore reaching the branch node. A branching node may have severaldescendants in the graph: one for each branch including the defaultbranch.

In one embodiment, request processing begins at the root of the messageprocessing graph when a request is received by a service proxy. At somepoint, the request message is conveyed to a pipeline-pair node where therequest pipeline node is invoked to perform processing. When the requestmessage is conveyed to a branch node, the request is further conveyedalong the selected branch. When the message is conveyed to a routingnode, routing is performed along with any outbound/responsetransformations. When a response message is received by the serviceproxy, it can be conveyed along a path which is the reverse of the pathtaken by the request message. The same thing occurs for any request paththat simply ends without a routing node—the service bus initiatesresponse processing and walks back up the graph, but without waiting forany response. During response processing, when we hit a pipeline-pairnode, we execute the response pipeline node. When we hit a branch node,it is treated as a no-op and the response is conveyed to the elementthat preceded the branch. When the response finally reaches the root ofthe graph, a response is send back to the requesting client (which couldbe another service or service proxy).

In one embodiment, any element may appear at the root of the messageprocessing graph. One of the simplest of router designs is to have justa routing node at the top representing the entire graph. There is alsono restriction on what two elements may be chained together. Forexample, two pipeline-pair nodes may be chained together without abranching node in between. With regards to branching, each branch maystart with a different element—one branch may immediately terminate witha routing node, another may be followed by a pipeline pair and yetanother may have no descendant whatsoever. In the latter case, a branchwith no descendants simply means that response processing beginsimmediately if that branch is selected. In general, however, a messageprocessing graph is likely to come in two forms: for non-operationalservices, the graph is likely to consist of a single pipeline-pair atthe root followed by a routing node. For operational services, themessage processing graph is likely to consist again of a singlepipeline-pair at the root, followed by a branching-node based onoperation, with each branch consisting of a pipeline-pair followed by arouting node.

In one embodiment, routers can be used with WSDL-based services so thereis a need to perform processing that is operation-specific. Rather thanrequiring users to manually configure a branching node based onoperation, the system can provide a zero-configuration branching nodethat automatically branches based on operation. A branch can be createdfor each operation defined on the service and the branching variable canof course be $operation.

Errors can occur during message processing for various reasons (e.g.transport errors while routing, validation errors while transforming,security errors while unmarshalling etc.). Typically, these errorsoriginate from a specific stage, routing node or from the binding layer,as that is where most of the router logic can be implemented. In oneembodiment, the system provides a mechanism to handle these errors byallowing the user to define error handlers. In one embodiment, an errorhandler is essentially another pipeline node that allows the user toperform various actions such as logging, transformation and publish tohandle the error as appropriate.

In one embodiment, an error handler can be configured for the entireservice proxy as well as for every pipeline node and stage within it.When an error occurs, it is handled by the inner-most encompassing errorhandler. For example, if a transformation error occurs in thetransformation stage, it can be handled by that stage's error-handler.If no such error-handler is configured, it can then be handled by thenext level error handler, which is that of the pipeline that containsthe transformation stage. If that error handler does not exist, it isthen handled by the router-level error handler. If that fails, then adefault system-level error handler can process the error.

FIG. 7 is an illustration of error handling scopes in accordance to anembodiment. Each enclosing box represents an error-handling scope. Ascan be seen in the figure, the next level error handler for uncaughterrors that occur in a routing node 704 is at the router-level scope706. If there were no handler at this scope, a handler at the systemlevel scope 708 would be invoked. For a pipeline stage 700 that does notcatch its own errors, the errors can propagate to the pipeline scope702. If no error handler is defined there, the errors can propagate tothe system level scope 708.

Every component, be it stage, pipeline or router can have an errorhandler. In one embodiment, since the inbound binding layer is notassociated with any particular stage or pipeline, errors that occur inthe binding layer can be handled by the router-level error handler.Outbound binding layer errors may occur in several places, depending onwhat entity is performing communication. For example, binding layererrors that occur during routing can be caught by the routing node'serror handler. Similarly, binding layer errors that occur during apublish operation in a publish stage can be caught by the stage-levelerror handler. In one embodiment, an empty or un-configured errorhandler is identical to not having an error handler at all. In ourprevious transformation example, if the stage-level error handler wascreated but never configured, then the error can “bubble-up” to the nextlevel handler.

In one embodiment, when an error handler can finishing processing withone of three actions: rethrow, reply and continue. The rethrow actionmeans that the error is rethrown and is to be handled by the next levelerror handler. Unless specified, the default behavior of an errorhandler is to rethrow, which is why an empty error handler behaves likea non-existent error handler. The reply action means that a responseshould be generated immediately for the service proxy client. Allfurther pipeline processing is immediately halted and the responsemessage is sent based on the state of the message-related contextvariables. It is therefore up to the user to configure the error handlerto transform these variables as necessary to generate a meaningfulresponse message.

The continue action is used to continue pipeline processing as if noerror occurred at all. Processing continues at whatever point the errorwas successfully consumed. This may require that the user configure theerror handler to fix-up the context variables as they may be in a statethat is not expected by the rest of the router. When an error handlerconsumes an error, processing resumes as if the component associatedwith the error handler had just finished executing successfully. Forexample, if an error occurs in a stage and an error handler associatedwith that stage consumes the error, then processing continues with thenext stage in the pipeline as if the stage has finished successfully.However, if there is no error handler configured with the stage or ifthe error handler rethrows the error, it could be consumed by thepipeline-level error handler. If so, processing resumes as if thatentire pipeline had finished executing successfully. For example, ifthat pipeline was a service request pipeline, then we may proceed withthe operational request pipeline. For the router-level error hander,continue is identical to reply, as the next action after successfullyexecuting the router is sending a response to the client.

Since in one embodiment an error handler is just another pipeline, itcan be configured just like any other pipeline. For example, the publishstage may be used to send error notifications to other services, thetransformation stage may be used to modify the context variables, etc.Some stages, however, are not allowed to appear in an error handler. Atthe moment, the prohibited stage is the routing stage.

In addition to the standard context variables, there are two additionalcontext variables available to an error handler in further aspects.These variables are set when the error handler is invoked and areautomatically removed if normal pipeline processing is resumed viacontinue. The two variables are $fault and $faultAction. The $faultvariable holds information about the error and where it occurred. Thisvariable may be used along with other context variables to performconditional actions in stages such as publishing and transformations.The error handler may even modify the contents of $fault beforerethrowing the error up to the next-level error handler.

$faultAction is a special variable that determines what action can beperformed once the error handler has finished executing. It is a simplestring-valued variable that may take on one of three values: “rethrow”,“reply” and “continue”. When the error handler finishes executing, thisvariable is examined to determine whether the service proxy shouldrethrow the error, reply immediately to the client or continueprocessing. This variable is initialized to a value of “rethrow”, so atransformation is necessary to change the value to either “continue” or“reply” if the user wishes to change the default rethrow behavior of anerror handler.

In one embodiment, the context is a property bag. Each property(“variable”) has a name and an associated value. Pre-defined contextvariables are used to represent pieces of the message in the pipeline aswell as to hold information about the inbound and outbound serviceendpoints. Additional variables may also be introduced during pipelineprocessing. In one embodiment, context variables can be manipulated withXQuery expressions. Pipeline stages may internally manipulate thecontext as part of their behavior.

Below is a list of the system-defined context variables in oneembodiment along with a brief description in accordance to anembodiment.

-   -   header—contains SOAP headers for SOAP messages.    -   body—contains the SOAP body for SOAP messages.    -   attachments—contains message attachments.    -   inbound—contains information about the service proxy that        received the request.    -   outbound—contains information about the target service where a        message is to be sent.    -   operation—identifies the Service proxy operation being invoked        (if applicable).    -   fault—contains information about any error that has occurred        during processing.    -   faultAction—specifies what action should be taken after        executing an error handler.

In one embodiment, header, body and attachments represent the state ofthe message as it flows through the message processing graph. Modifyingthe message can be accomplished by modifying these variables. Thesevariables are initialized using the message content received by theservice proxy and are used to construct an outgoing message whendispatching to other services (e.g. via routing). All message-relatedvariables are updatable by message processing nodes and stages. Thevariables are entirely independent and may be modified individually.

When a message is sent by the service proxy a choice can be made as towhich variable's content to include in the message. That determinationis dependent in one embodiment upon whether the target endpoint isexpecting a SOAP or a non-SOAP message. In the case of SOAP, header andbody are combined in a SOAP envelope to create the message. In the caseof non-SOAP, payload is the entire message. In either case, if theservice is expecting attachments, then a MIME package can be created outof the resulting message and the attachments variable.

The header variable contains any SOAP headers associated with themessage. It points to a <SOAP:Header> element with headers assub-elements. If the case of non-SOAP messages or SOAP messages thathave no headers, the <SOAP:Header> element can be empty, having nosub-elements.

The body variable represents the core message payload and points to a<SOAP:Body> element. In the case of SOAP messages, the SOAP body isextracted from the envelope and assigned to the body variable. If themessage is non-SOAP or not XML, then the full message contents areplaced within a newly created <SOAP:Body> element. Thus, the corepayload for both SOAP and non-SOAP messages would be available via thesame variable and with the same packaging (e.g. wrapped in a <SOAP:Body>element).

The attachments variable holds any attachments associated with themessage. In a further embodiment, the attachments variable is asingle-rooted piece of XML that has one sub-element for each individualattachment. These sub-elements contain information about the attachment(derived from MIME headers) as well as the attachment content. Inaspects of this embodiment, an attachment element can include thefollowing elements:

-   -   Content-ID—a globally-unique reference that identifies the        attachment.    -   Content-Type—specifies the media type and sub-type of the        attachment.    -   Content-Transfer-Encoding—specifies how the attachment is        encoded.    -   Content-Description—a textual description of the content.    -   Content-Location—a locally-unique URI-based reference that        identifies the attachment.    -   Content-Disposition—specifies how the attachment should be        handled by the recipient.    -   Body—holds the attachment data.

In one embodiment, inbound and outbound variables contain informationabout the inbound and outbound endpoints. The inbound variable containsinformation about the service proxy that received the request message,whereas the outbound variable contains information about the destinationservice (e.g. the route) where a message can be sent. The variables havethe same XML schema and contain “service”, “transport” and “client”sub-elements as well a single “name” attribute that identifies the nameof the endpoint as it is registered in the service directory.

In one embodiment, a service variable contains general information aboutthe service and can include the following elements:

-   -   providerName—holds the name of the service provider    -   versionGroup—identifies the version group of the service    -   version—identifies the version number of the service relative to        the version group.    -   operation—identifies the name of the operation being invoked on        the external service.

In one embodiment, the transport element contains transport detailsabout the service and can include the following elements:

-   -   uri—identifies the URI of the endpoint. For inbound, this is the        URI by which the message arrived. For outbound, this is the URI        to use when sending the message, which overrides any URI value        registered in the service directory.    -   request—transport-specific configuration information about the        request including transport headers. Each transport may have its        own specialization of RequestConfiguration information, so the        structure of this element ultimately depends upon the transport        being used.    -   response—transport-specific configuration information about the        response including transport headers. As with        RequestConfiguration information, the structure of this element        ultimately depends upon the transport being used.    -   mode—indicates if the communication style is request—(one-way)        or request-response (two-way).    -   securityType—indicates the type of security for the transport.        In one embodiment, the possible values are “none”, “basic”,        “one-way-SSL” and “two-way-SSL”.    -   accountAlias—This element identifies an alias to an        external-service account registered with the credential manager.        The transport layer can use this value as the key in a        credential manager lookup to fetch the username/password to use        on an outbound HTTP/S connection.    -   qualityOfService—specifies the quality of service expected when        sending a message. In one embodiment, possible values are        “best-effort” and “exactly-once”.    -   retryCount—number of retries to use when sending a message.    -   retryInterval—the interval in seconds to wait before attempting        to resend a message.

In one embodiment, a message processing stage can utilize XQuery and/orXUpdate to manipulate the context. Each variable in the context can berepresented as an XQuery variable of the same name. For example, theheader variable can be accessible in XQuery as $header.

In one embodiment, context variable values can be generated on-demandand streamed as much as possible. For example, the incoming request andresponse message can be returned by the transport layer as a Java®InputStream. In the case of pass-thru processing, the stream is nottouched until it is time for the service proxy to send it to anotherservice or service proxy. For SOAP messages, the headers variable can beun-marshaled without having to materialize the body. Likewise,attachments can be unpacked if the attachments variables is accessed. Inthe case of operation, it too should trigger inspection of the requestmessage to determine the operation being invoked if the variable isspecifically accessed.

In addition to routing, transformation and monitoring, the service busincludes various features that make it possible to secure messageexchanges between clients, service proxies and services. In oneembodiment, the service bus offers: message confidentiality, messageintegrity, server authentication and client authentication over TLS/SSL;message level confidentiality, integrity and sender authentication forsoap messages; access control at both the transport and message level;credential management; and security auditing.

In one embodiment, the security features in service bus make use of thepluggable security provider architecture and security services, such as:authentication, identity assertion, authorization, role mapping,auditing, credential mapping, and certificate lookup and validation.Service bus can make use of all these providers as building blocks toprovide higher-level security services. Users can replace any of theseout of the box providers with third party providers or their own customproviders. In one embodiment, service bus security can be provided byBEA WebLogic Enterprise Security™, available from BEA Systems, Inc.

FIG. 8 is an illustration of service providers in an embodiment. One ormore external services 808 are provided by external service providers804. Intermediary service bus services are termed service proxies 806which can be provided by proxy (or local) service providers 802. Serviceproviders are applications, organizations or departments that have asecurity identity. Clients that invoke a service proxy and have asecurity identity are termed service consumers 800. External serviceproviders are inherently service consumers also since they can respondsynchronously or asynchronously to a request.

In various embodiments and by way of illustration, the service bus andexternal services can be in the same network, behind a firewall, or ondifferent networks with firewalls between service consumers and servicebuses and/or service buses and external services. In one embodiment,service proxies and target services are collocated in the same domain. Aspecial case of this can be Business Process Management (BPM). At theother end of the spectrum, service bus proxies receive messages from, orroute messages to, trading partners outside of the organization.

In one embodiment, user management deals with the create, update anddelete operations of users, groups and roles in a given authenticationprovider. These providers are part of the security framework. Inaddition, user management also allows for the creation of userproperties. Users, groups and roles can be configured with the consoleare used for the authentication of console users and message senders.

In one embodiment, a user is an entity in the authentication provider.Multiple authentication providers are supported. A group is a logicalgrouping of users whose membership is static and assigned to by theadministrator of that group. A role is a logical grouping of users andgroups whose membership is calculated dynamically based on roleconditions or policies. An administrator can create, read, update anddelete users, groups and roles in any of the authentication providersupported. Access control policies are typically based on roles.

In one embodiment, the service bus supports transport levelconfidentiality, message integrity, and client authentication forone-way requests or request/response (from clients to service bus) overHTTPS. The service bus can perform policy based access control and canaudit authentication and authorization events. Alarms can be triggeredwhen authentication or authorization fails. In one embodiment, when aservice proxy is activated, the service bus can generate and deploy athin web-application on the fly. An application server (e.g., WebLogic®Server) can provide server-side SSL support, including sessionmanagement, client certificate validation and authentication, trustmanagement and server SSL key/certificate manipulation.

In one embodiment, the application server can send its certificate tothe client in the SSL protocol. In other words, the client authenticatesthe server. In addition to that, during the SSL handshake the server mayrequest the client to send its certificate to the server so that theserver authenticates the client. This is typically called 2-way SSL.When the client is not requested to send its certificate it is called1-way SSL. Higher-level protocols on top of SSL are free to define theirown authentication mechanism. With HTTPS, for example, once the SSLhandshake is completed, clients can authenticate to the server bysending their username and password in the WWW-Authenticate HTTP header.This is called BASIC authentication.

In one embodiment, if the service proxy has been configured to requireclient authentication, the server can authenticate all requests to theservice proxy endpoint. For BASIC authentication, the server canauthenticate the client against the authentication providers configuredin the realm, e.g. LDAP, active directory, etc. For CLIENT-CERTauthentication, the SSL engine can validate the client certificate. Oncetrust in the certificate has been established, the certificate is passedto the identity assertion providers to extract the client identity. Inaspects of this embodiment, the identity assertion providers are anothercomponent of the server security framework. Identity asserters areconfigured to extract some field of the certificate to use as the clientidentity, typically the CN (common name) or E (email) of theSubjectDistinguishedName in the certificate. Finally, the authenticationproviders are invoked to collect all groups the user belongs to. The endresult is a signed Java Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS)Subject with one principal holding the client identity and one principalfor each group the user belongs to.

In one embodiment, the service bus also supports BASIC clientauthentication on HTTP proxies. When an HTTP/HTTPS proxy is firstdeployed, an access control policy for the service proxy URI is storedin the authorization provider. In one embodiment, service bus supportsXACML.

In one embodiment, if the service proxy does not require clientauthentication then the initial access control policy grants access toall requests. If the service proxy requires client authentication (BASICor CLIENT-CERT) the initial policy grants access to all authenticatedclients (but anonymous requests are rejected). Security administratorscan change the access control policy on the service bus console. Inservice bus, the user can choose between the following policies:Unchecked (all requests are granted access); Excluded (all requests arerejected); Authenticated users (anonymous requests are rejected); and aset of roles.

In one embodiment, successful authentication results in a JAAS Subjectthat wraps the client identity principal and one principal for eachgroup the user belongs to. Users can be assigned to groups. Roles can bedefined in terms of groups (or other criteria, e.g. time-of-day). Theset of roles a user belongs to is determined dynamically at runtime. Ifthe access control policy is a set of roles, then users that belong toone or more of those roles can be granted access. If authenticationsucceeds, the web-container invokes the service bus HTTP/HTTPS transportprovider. From there the message proceeds to the service bus bindinglayer. The binding layer stores the client principal from theauthenticated JAAS Subject in the message context and invokes therequest pipeline. Pipeline stages can make use of the client principalin business rules. For example a client-specific transformation may beapplied, or the routing table conditions may take into account theclient principal.

At the end of a request pipeline node, proxies typically route themessage to a target service. The target service can be determined by arouting stage in the pipeline. The routing stage can route to the sametarget service or can dynamically choose the target service based onsome conditions. Either way, the target service is specified as areference to an external service (or a service proxy) registered in aservice bus Service Directory. Administrators use the service busconsole to register external services.

In one embodiment, when the external service is registered, the servicetransport and one or more URLs for the service are entered. This is thetransport and URL(s) the service proxy can use to route requests to thatparticular external service. If the transport is HTTPS, then one of thefollowing authentication methods can be specified: BASIC, CLIENT-CERT orno client authentication. If the transport is HTTP, BASIC or no clientauthentication is supported. If the authentication method is BASIC, thenan optional ServiceAccount can be specified. Outbound (client, e.g.proxy) authentication can be covered later.

In one embodiment, the service bus supports transport level security forone-way and request-response messages sent over HTTP(S), between servicebus proxies and external services. HTTPS offers confidentiality andintegrity. It also allows service bus to authenticate the target server.Additionally, if required, service bus proxies can authenticate to theexternal service. This is similar to inbound transport security, but inthis case service bus is initiating the HTTPS connection. Note that inthe outbound case, from an SSL protocol point of view, the service proxyis acting as the client and the server running the target service as theserver. The service bus HTTPS transport provider sends HTTP requestsover an HTTPS connection to the target server and accepts the HTTPresponse. The target server can send its SSL certificate to the server.

In one embodiment, two client authentication methods can be used withHTTP/S: CLIENT-CERT and BASIC. If the external service is configuredwith CLIENT-CERT authentication, then during the SSL handshake theservice proxy can send its SSL client certificate to the target server.In one embodiment, service proxies are optionally associated with localservice providers. The credential manager binds credentials to localservice providers. A local service provider can have a private key andcertificate for SSL client authentication. This is the key/certificatethe service proxy can use during the SSL handshake. Many service proxiescan share the same SSL client key/certificate by virtue of referencingthe same local service provider.

In one embodiment, an external service may require the service proxy toauthenticate by sending a username and password. This is typically doneover HTTPS, but service bus also supports BASIC authentication overHTTP. HTTPS provides an encrypted channel; therefore it is safe to sendthe password over HTTPS. On the other hand, HTTP with BASICauthentication is strongly discouraged because the password goes inclear-text (base64-encoded) on the wire.

On one embodiment, when an HTTP or HTTPS external service is configuredwith BASIC authentication, an additional service account can beoptionally specified. If no service account is specified, then theservice proxy can determine the username and password to use from thecredential manager, in a way analogous to how the service proxy SSLclient key is retrieved: the service proxy is associated with a localservice provider and a username/password is associated with the localservice provider. If the external service specifies a service account,then a username and password for that service account is stored in thecredential manager. In this case the service proxy does not get theusername and password from the local service provider; instead theservice proxy sends the username/password of the service account.

In one embodiment, the message context has an element that allowspipeline node designers to specify the name of a service account to usefor retrieving username/password credentials. A transformation stage ina request pipeline can set this element of the message context. Ifspecified, this service account overrides both the local serviceprovider credential

In one embodiment, the service bus supports OASIS Web Services Security(WSS or WSS for short). WSS defines a framework for messageconfidentiality, integrity and sender authentication for SOAP messages.WSS applies to individual SOAP envelopes. WSS uses XML-Encryption andXML-DSIG as building blocks. The WSS runtime on the client encryptsand/or digitally signs one or more individual message parts. In oneembodiment, a new SOAP header is added to the envelope. The WSS headerincludes the XML-DSIG digital signatures, security tokens and otherconstructs. These security tokens can be used for sender authentication,key-wrapping (basically carrying a randomly generated symmetricencryption key encrypted with the recipient's public key), carrying thesignature verification certificate, or for including a certificate withthe encryption public key of the sender (so that the recipient canencrypt the response). The result is a new SOAP envelope. When therecipient consumes the secured envelope, the cryptographic operationsare performed in reverse order and the security header is removed. Therecipient then verifies that the message conforms to its policy (e.g.required message parts were signed and/or encrypted, required tokens arepresent with the required claims and more).

In one embodiment, individual parts of a SOAP envelope can be digitallysigned and/or encrypted. The resulting message is still a valid SOAPenvelope. For example, the body may be encrypted, a WS-Addressing headermay be signed and yet another header may be neither signed norencrypted. WSS does not rely on a secure channel. Instead, one or moreparts of individual SOAP envelopes are protected. This SOAP envelope issent over whatever underlying protocol/transport is being used, forexample HTTP or JMS. The security measures are built into the messageitself, the message is protected beyond the transport protocol, all theway to the application layer. Furthermore, an intermediary can relay themessage while preserving the security properties of confidentiality,integrity and authentication. Thus end-to-end confidentiality, messageintegrity and sender authentication can be achieved.

By way of illustration, an inbound WSS-secured message can be:

-   -   A request from a service consumer to a proxy. The service        consumer applies WSS to the request and the service proxy        processes the security header and enforces the security policy.    -   A request from a service consumer to a proxy. The service        consumer applies WSS to the request but the service proxy does        not process the security header and does not enforce the        security policy. The service proxy routes the request to an        external service. The external service processes the security        header and enforces the policy. This is a request pass-through        scenario.    -   A response from a target service to a proxy. The target service        applies WSS to the response and the service proxy processes the        security header and enforces the security policy.    -   A response from a target service to a proxy. The target service        applies WSS to the response but the service proxy does not        process the security header and does not enforce the security        policy. The service proxy forwards the response to the service        consumer. The service consumer processes the security header and        enforces the policy. This is a response pass-through scenario.

By way of illustration, an outbound WSS-secured message can be:

-   -   A message from a proxy to an external service. The service proxy        applies WSS to the message and the target service processes the        security header and enforces the policy.    -   A response from a proxy to a service consumer. The service proxy        applies WSS to the message and the service consumer processes        the security header and enforces the policy.

By way of further illustration, a service consumer can send an encryptedWSS SOAP message to a service proxy for routing, the service proxyroutes the message, perhaps based on the value of some clear-textheader, for example a WS-Addressing header or a custom header, theback-end service receives the encrypted message, decrypts it andprocesses the request. The service then sends a response, encrypted withthe client's public key. The service proxy delivers the response to theclient. The service proxy doesn't need to decrypt the message. Theservice consumer and back-end service can be assured that the serviceproxy is not able to read sensitive data (because the service proxy doesnot have the decryption keys). Similarly, the service consumer mayinclude a security token for authentication purposes and the serviceproxy can relay the token to the target service.

In one embodiment and by way of illustration, service proxies can beconfigured to process the WSS header on the incoming request fromservice consumers, for example when service bus is used as a gateway forincoming requests from external business partners. This may be useful tooffload a back-end service from computationally intensive decryption,signature verification and authentication operations, when the serviceproxy and target service are collocated, to enforce access control atthe gateway, and when the target service does not support WSS. In oneembodiment, the service consumer encrypts and/or signs one or more partsof the message, and/or includes an authentication token. The serviceproxy authenticates the token, decrypts the message and verifies thedigital signature. Access control based on the WSS authentication tokenand message content can happen here. The clear-text message then goesthrough the request pipeline. At the end of the pipeline the message isrouted to the target service.

By way of illustration the service proxy can apply WSS to the message onbehalf of a service consumer. In this case the service proxy receives aclear-text message from the service consumer. The message flows throughthe request pipeline as usual. At the end of the pipeline, once thetarget service has been determined and before actually sending themessage, the service proxy encrypts and/or signs and/or adds anauthentication token to the message. This new secured SOAP envelope isdelivered to the target service.

In one embodiment, the system supports the OASIS Web Service Securitystandard, as well as the Username Token Profile and X.509 Token Profile.Back-end services, clients and service proxies can be configured withoptional WS-policies modeled after the Web Services Policy Framework(WS-Policy) specification developed by BEA, IBM, Microsoft, SAP, SonicSoftware, and VeriSign. This framework defines an extensiblearchitecture for specifying and configuring web service requirements andcapabilities.

In a given request/response round-trip, all four messages can beindividually protected. Each of the four messages in the overall messagepath is potentially subject to the requirements specified in WS-policy.The sender can apply the necessary steps to produce a message thatconforms to the policy, for example by signing and/or encrypting one ormore message parts, and/or including the required authentication tokens.The recipient can perform the necessary steps to consume the message,that is, decryption, signature validation and tokenvalidation/authentication. In addition, the recipient can verify thatthe message does in fact conform to the policy.

In one embodiment, the service bus can be configured with thecredentials it needs to securely interact with service consumers andexternal services. In particular, on inbound messages, the service busmay be configured to:

-   -   Send its (server) credentials so that the client can        authenticate the service bus server (for example during the SSL        handshake).    -   Authenticate the message sender at the transport level or        message level.    -   Decrypt an encrypted message with service bus's private        decryption key.    -   Verify a digital signature on an incoming message. On outbound        messages the service bus may be configured to:    -   Authenticate the server at the other end of the connection (for        example during the SSL handshake).    -   Authenticate itself to the recipient at the transport level or        message level.    -   Encrypt the message with the public key of the intended        recipient.    -   Sign the message for authentication or data integrity purposes.

A service bus Credential Manager component can provide an operations,administration and maintenance API and a runtime API for managingcredentials and retrieving credentials. Credentials can fall into twocategories: External credentials (credentials belonging to externalservices or service consumers that interact with service proxy); andLocal credentials (credentials belonging to service proxies or theservice bus system as a whole).

In a further embodiment, credentials can be categorized by type. Theservice bus can support username/password, private-key/X.509 certificatechain and trusted X.509 certificates. A CredentialManager can beextended to support other credential types. In one embodiment,credentials, whether external or local, can be bound to a service busresource. For example, if the web service security policy of a proxyrequires the SOAP body of inbound messages to be encrypted with RSA,there can be a private-key and X.509 certificate chain bound to theservice proxy. The CredentialManager manages these bindings betweenservice bus resources and credentials.

In one embodiment, the CredentialManager manages these credentials:

-   -   For local service providers: Encryption certificate and        corresponding private key; Digital signature private key and        certificate; Username/password; SSL private key and certificate        for local service provider, used for SSL client authentication;        Private key and certificate for WSS authentication (X.509        Token).    -   For external service providers: Encryption certificate; Digital        signature verification certificate; Username/password; SSL        client certificate; SSL server certificate; X.509 authentication        certificate (for WSS X.509 Token authentication).    -   For service consumers: Encryption certificate; Digital signature        verification certificate; Username/password; SSL client        certificate; X.509 authentication certificate for WSS        authentication (X.509 Token).

In one embodiment, a rule is basically a statement that evaluates anexpression and (usually) yields a Boolean result. A rule can include alist of associated actions that are executed if the rule evaluates to“true”. The conditions included in a rule could range from current timeof the day (a business Calendar, for e.g.) to runtime context data, userprofile and so on. By way of a non-limiting example, rules can be usedto trigger SLA alerts based on system health and response times,dynamically adjust the “cost/health” of service bus services based oncertain conditions, raise notifications in case of security violations,and detect denial of service attacks. For example:

-   -   Rule 1: If the average response-time of Service OrderRouter “is        greater than” 350 milliseconds then Notify    -   Rule 2: If Between 9 am and 5 pm the response-time of Service        CreditCheck “is greater than” 10 seconds then Invoke Web Service        “Log a trouble ticket”

In one embodiment, rules can be created via the console and representedin XML. An XML configuration schema can define the rule format. Theservice bus rule engine can support several different kinds of rules,depending on the location of the rule. The various rule types aredescribed in further detail later in this document. In one embodiment,service bus rules have the following format:

-   -   If <set of conditions> then <perform a set of Actions>

By way of a illustration, conditions can be based on: time (calendar)and monitoring data aggregated by the monitoring framework. This can beeasily extended to include many more condition types such as userprofile attributes, pipeline context runtime data and so on. In oneembodiment, each condition type registers itself with the rule frameworkand provides a configuration and an evaluation interface. This can allowplugging in as many condition types as necessary in future.

In one embodiment, rules can be broadly classified into the followingtwo categories: SLA Rules and Inline Rules. SLA Rules are primarily usedto evaluate SLAs and trigger alerts to catch potential system failuresahead of time. This can be done by aggregating monitoring informationfrom all of the service proxies at regular intervals and checking thegenerated stats to ensure that all performance constraints are met.Inline Rules are useful because there is a requirement to supportuse-cases that require rules to be triggered inline (mostly from theerror pipeline) as the pipeline executes, without the delay ofmonitoring data aggregation. For e.g., “Notify the customer the messageoriginated from about a security credential mismatch”. In this case, thecontact information for the customer needs to be looked up from the UserManagement module. This requires a mechanism to embed rule “triggerpoints” inside of pipelines and allow business users to associate ruleswith these triggers at runtime. Such rules also require some minimalamount of runtime context data to be passed to the actions (current userprofile, current message, etc.).

Rules can be constructed via the management console. Each rule isassociated with a single specific “entity” (service, stage, J2EEresource etc.). A rule schema can define the format of each rule. In oneembodiment, a rule builder presents a front-end for users to construct arule by tying together all the elements required to construct a rule.This involves specifying a rule name and a binding—the entity (service,stage, JMS resource etc.) to which the rule is bound. Selecting aservice implies that the rule can be constructed using the monitoringelements available in the pipelines, routers and transports. In oneembodiment, the binding provides a “context” for the rule in terms ofclearly identifying what runtime data, if any, is available to the rule.

In one embodiment, a rule's trigger can be specified: a rule can triggeractions once and await manual reset or condition automatically resets; arule triggers actions every time rule evaluates to true; and a ruletriggers actions every ‘x’ minutes if the rule evaluates to true, etc.

In one embodiment, a rule can include zero or more conditions.Conditions can be of different types: Business Calendar, MonitoringData, Runtime Context Variables and so on. The rule framework isdesigned to easily plug in new condition types from a runtimeperspective.

Depending on the entity to which the rule is bound the rule builder userinterface can allow specific condition types to be included in the rule.For example, SLA rules can be defined on the monitoring data that isavailable at that specific binding. Rules associated with JMS resourcescan include conditions based on the JMS resource metrics defined by theserver. However, there can be certain condition types like BusinessCalendars that can associated with rules deployed to all binding points.This is because calendars don't depend on any specific context/bindingrelated data. Each condition is comprised of one or more expressionsthat can be arbitrarily joined and nested using the OR & AND operators.For example consider the following rule:

If “Between 9 am and 5 pm” the “average_response_time of service ABCexceeds 2 seconds OR the security_violation_count exceeds 25” thenNotify me via e-mail “once, until manually reset or conditionautomatically clears”.

In the above rule, there are two condition types —Business Calendar andMonitoring Data. The monitoring data based conditions are logicallyOR'ed. For the above rule to be true, the current system time has bebetween 9 am and 5 pm AND either the average_response_time can exceed 2seconds OR the security violations can exceed 25. Conditions are allAND'ed at the top level. Individual conditions consist of expressionsthat can be arbitrarily combined and nested (using Ors & ANDs).

In one embodiment, a list of actions can accompany a rule whichspecifies actions that need to be executed when the rule evaluates totrue. The user may choose not include any actions in the rule. In oneembodiment, a rule has at least one condition OR one action. Users canbe asked to specify all the necessary configuration parameters necessaryto execute the action. In one embodiment, actions can vary from simpletasks like sending out a notification email to invoking a remote webservice to log a trouble ticket that gets routed to a specific worklist.The following are a few of the actions that can be available in theService bus alerting framework: notify via email; invoke a web service;and set Service Cost—sets the “cost” of a service in the servicedirectory. The cost of a service can be used to make routing decisions.

In one embodiment, the rule evaluator evaluates rules when triggered byan event. This can be via direct API invocation—The Rule Evaluatorprovides API methods that can be used to trigger rule evaluation. Themethod invocation parameters can contain information to identify one ormore rules that need to be evaluated. For example, the Monitoring DataAggregator, can invoke the rule evaluator API to evaluate SLA rulesassociated with a service when new monitoring data becomes available forthat service. Rule evaluation can also be triggered by eventsubscription—the evaluator could subscribe to an event mechanism andtrigger rule evaluation when an event is raised. The event context cancontain all the runtime information that could be used in ruleevaluation and action execution. A security stage raising asecurity-violation event could trigger rule evaluation to notify anadministrator. In this example, the event context could contain themessageID and the sender's address that can help the admin clearlyidentify the source of the problem. Timer based rules could be triggeredvia a business calendar according to a pre-determined schedule. In oneembodiment, a scheduling service could generate timer events that ruleevaluator is subscribed to and kick-off the rule evaluation process whenthe event is raised.

In one embodiment, a framework to aggregate data that can be used tomonitor the health of the system. The important features of thisframework include: Allow users to easily embed performance monitorapplications into service bus services via configuration; provide amechanism to disable/enable monitoring at runtime; aggregate data andcompute alerts to notify users of potential system failures; and providebasic metrics (e.g., minimum, maximum, average etc.) on the aggregateddata.

In one embodiment, the monitoring framework can define a list ofmonitoring elements. Monitoring elements are a specific category of amonitoring metric. Monitoring elements are generic enough so they can beused by a wide variety of components. The list of monitoring elementscan be extensible and more such elements can be added as required. Inone embodiment, the framework can currently define the followingmonitoring elements:

-   -   Counters: provide a mechanism for users to define and use        counters in their code to keep track of things like number of        requests processed, number of error, number of messages        processed etc. Counters can provide methods to increment,        decrement and reset the current value of the counter.    -   Timers: applications can use timers to time specific operations.        A timer can provide methods to start, stop, reset and check the        amount of elapsed time since the timer was started.

FIG. 9 is an illustration of monitoring components in accordance to anembodiment. A configuration manager 914 on admin server 900 captures theconfiguration information necessary for the monitoring framework. Forexample, this can include a list of monitoring attributes for eachapplication, the data type of each attribute, whether monitoring isenabled, the frequency at which monitoring data needs to be aggregatedfor each application, etc. If external applications are interested inmonitoring data they can also register with the configuration manager.In one embodiment, monitoring managers 906 run on managed servers 902.In one embodiment, the monitoring manager can be exposed through MBeans916 externally and through a factory internally. Their primaryfunctionality is to manage the monitored information on each managedserver. APIs can also be provided so that applications can invokemonitoring functions for their data attributes.

In one embodiment, a data aggregator 910 runs on the admin servers atregular intervals (configurable) and aggregates data from all theinformation from managed servers in a given domain. The aggregated dataare processed and classified into specific time intervals as specifiedin the configuration of each application. The console can displaymonitoring information uses the aggregated data. At regular interval themonitoring data publisher (not shown) publishes data to registeredexternal applications for the purpose of archiving or externalcomputing. A rule manager 918 is charged of storing rules and evaluatesrules using the aggregated data. In one embodiment, when a rule isevaluated to true it calls the alert manager 912. The alert managernotifies other processes when a rule is evaluated to true. For example,it can send an email and/or post a message on a queue according to theaction associated with the rule.

In one embodiment and by way of illustration, the data aggregator 910keeps less and less data in memory as the data get older. Windows can bedefined to view the data with different precisions on different periodsof time. For example, we define the following windows: 5 min, 1 h, 24 h.For a counter it means we are going to store for the last 5 min the allvariations (may change that and decide to get variations by second forexample or by 10 seconds). For the last hour the variations by 5 min.For the last 24 h the variations by hour. For any larger period thevariation by day (implicit). With this configuration it means we need tostore in memory an undetermined number of value for the last 5 min, +12values for the last hour, +24 values for the last day and +1 value byday. So, for 365 days:˜=400 values. The aggregated data can be displayedin graphs on the console and/or used to trigger rules.

In one embodiment, the user can interactively specify rules in theconsole. For example, the console can display a tree of monitoredvariables organized by services/stages/transport/quality of servicewhich can be dragged and dropped inside an XQuery expression for therule. Functions can also be dragged and dropped into the XQueryexpression.

In one embodiment, applications that want to use the monitoringframework to capture monitoring data can specify the list of attributesthat need to be monitored and optionally specify a sliding window oftime and the frequency of updates within that window to capture data.When a sliding window and an interval within that window are specified,the system can also be configured to maintain “Recent Activity Window”,which is a list of all monitoring entries that were made in the mostrecent time interval that is configured. In one embodiment, the systemsupports monitoring using counters and timers.

In one embodiment, the configuration information defines the list ofattributes that each application is monitoring. Every application (orapplication instance, as in the case of transports) can register itselfwith the monitoring framework. Registration can involve providing aunique name and a list of attributes (and the corresponding data types)that can be monitored and time window specifications. The framework canpublish a schema for the configuration.

In one embodiment, the admin server includes all of the runtimefunctionality provided by the framework. On an admin server this caninclude: aggregating data from all the managed servers; triage the datainto respective time interval windows; compute statistics on theaggregated data; define an MBean interface to provide access to theaggregated data; notify the Alert Manager of changes in data so rulescan be triggered (or evaluate rules at regular interval); and provide amechanism to publish monitoring data to external archival systems. On amanaged server, the monitoring manager can: defines APIs forapplications to record monitoring data; provide a runtime store fordata; and expose its data through MBeans.

In one embodiment, in order to log monitoring values, applications(e.g., transport, pipeline stage) need to first retrieve a monitoringcontext for the respective application by passing in a uniqueapplication name. The monitoring context provides access to namedcounters and timers that provide methods to log data. For example,sample source code can look like this:

-   -   ctx.getMonitoringService( ).getTimer(“execution_time”).start( );    -   ctx.getMonitoringService( ).getCounter(“nb_messages”).increment(        );    -   ctx.getMonitoringService( ).getTimer(“execution_time”).stop( );

The admin server includes a data aggregator 910 which polls each managedserver on a specific polling interval and aggregates data. Theaggregated data is sorted and binned into memory storage bins organizedby application name and the respective time windows configured.Statistics are then computed on the updated data. A Monitoring RuntimeBean 916 can allow applications to access this aggregated data. Inaddition, the admin server can notify the rule manager 918 so the rulescan be run against the updated data and/or publish data.

If the condition of a rule is true the associated action(s) can beperformed. In one embodiment, an action can be implemented as a service.In one embodiment, rules can be evaluated periodically at auser-specified interval. In one embodiment, alerts are implemented asservices deployed on the service bus. The framework provides aconfiguration mechanism from which external applications can choose tohave the aggregated monitoring data published to them on a specific JMStopic.

In one embodiment, a rule is a statement that evaluates one or moreexpressions and yields a Boolean result. In a further embodiment, a rulealso has a list of associated actions that are executed if the result ofevaluating ALL the conditions included in the rule results in a value of“true”. Examples of conditions that could be included in a rule are:current time of the day (a business Calendar); current user profile;application response times (or other monitoring data); and a securityviolation encountered by an application. Examples of actions that couldbe included in a rule are: notify an email address; send a message;create a new task entry; invoke a service; and enable/disable a service.

Rule examples:

-   -   A simple action—send a notification to administrator when the        average response time of a particular service exceeds a certain        threshold.    -   Between 9 am and 5 pm, everyday, raise an alert if more than 10        security violations are encountered in a 5 minute interval.    -   Log an entry if a message of type X was detected more than 10        times in the last 10 minutes.    -   If a process instance of type P has been “RUNNING” for longer        than 12 hours, create a Worklist task entry.

In one embodiment, rules can be expressed in several differentway—natural language, XQuery statements, etc. The console can allowusers to administer rules. The underlying rules can be persisted as XMLdocuments and the schema for this XML can be published. In oneembodiment, the rule framework runtime can consume this XML document andevaluate the rules at runtime. The XML document can be converted to anappropriate runtime format when evaluating these rules. Monitoringmetrics based conditions, for example, can be evaluated as an XQuery. Byway of a non-limiting illustration and with reference to FIG. 10, ruletriggers can be of various kinds: availability of updated monitoringmetrics 1010; an event 1012; a process transitioning from one state toanother; a change in the average response time of a service; arrival amessage of a certain type 1012; and a scheduling service 1018 thattriggers a rule periodically.

In one embodiment, a rule context encapsulates the runtime data that isconsumed by the rule when evaluating conditions and actions included inthe rule. A rule context is very closely associated with a rule trigger.The runtime data contained in the rule context depends on the type ofthe trigger. For example, a rule context generated by a triggerassociated with the change in the average response time of a service cancontain the name of the service and the new value of the averageresponse time. A rule context based on an event trigger can contain thenature of the event and data associated with that specific event.

Rules can be defined and associated with various entities. In oneembodiment, rule binding captures information about the entity that arule is associated with. The rule binding influences the rule context interms of clearly defining what, if any, runtime data is available to therule. Each such entity with which a rule is associated can provide therule with a set of data that can be used to build conditions andactions. For example, an SLA rule bound to a service proxy can includeconditions based on the monitoring metrics available for that service.

As earlier mentioned, a rule can include a list of conditions and a listof actions. Each rule can have the following structure:

-   -   If <set of conditions> then <perform a set of Actions>

A rule can include zero or more conditions. In one embodiment, rulesthat do not include and conditions are always true and the action isexecuted each time the rule is triggered. Conditions can be of differenttypes: Business Calendar, Monitoring Data, User Profile and othersuitable types. The framework is designed such that new condition typescan be easily plugged in at runtime to accommodate new condition typesdesired by customers.

In one embodiment, the types of conditions that can be included in therule are dictated by the rule binding. An exception to this statementare conditions like a business calendar, which can be associated withall rules since a business calendar definition is “global” and not tiedto any particular binding point. Each condition comprises of one or moreexpressions that can be arbitrarily combined and nested using logical ORand logical AND operators. In one embodiment, conditions are all AND'edat the top-level. All the conditions included in a rule need to evaluateto “true” for a rule to evaluate to true. Just as new condition typescan be added to the rule framework at runtime, new action types can beregistered at runtime as well. In one embodiment, the alert frameworkcan define an SPI that allows for the addition of new actions andconditions.

A rule trigger is responsible for kicking-off the process of evaluatingof a rule. As mentioned above, the rule evaluation process can betriggered by several different mechanisms. In one embodiment and by wayof illustration, these mechanisms can include: availability of updatedmonitoring metrics; event subscription—the rule evaluator couldsubscribe to an event framework and trigger rule evaluation when anevent is raised; and timer based rules—a scheduling service couldgenerate timer events that the rule evaluator is subscribed to andkick-off rule evaluation at fixed intervals.

In one embodiment, evaluating a rule involves evaluating each of theconditions included in the rule and if all of the conditions evaluate totrue, the included actions are invoked. By way of illustration, the ruleevaluator walks through each condition included in the rule and invokesthe corresponding evaluator associated with each condition type toevaluate the condition. In a further embodiment, each condition typeregisters an evaluator that can evaluate conditions of that type.Registering a condition evaluator involves implementing a Java®interface published by the alert framework.

In one embodiment, the rule framework provides a service providerinterface (SPI) through which additional condition and action types canbe registered. In one embodiment, each action and condition type isimplemented as a separate web-application. When the application isdeployed, a listener class registers these condition and action types.

In one embodiment, a rule binding identifies a location with which rulescan be associated. Each service (both external and proxy) can define oneor more binding points to which rules can be deployed. A binding pointcan capture the monitoring metrics registered by all the pipelines,stages and transports in that service proxy. Rules can be bound to thisbinding point and monitoring metrics available at this binding point canbe used to construct conditions. In one embodiment, a listenerregistered with the configuration manager is notified each time aservice proxy created/updated/deleted. This listener can extract thebinding points in the service and register them with an alert bindingmanager.

In one embodiment, every “entity” (service or process) that contains arule binding point can register these binding points with the AlertManager when the entity comes into “existence”. For Service busservices, this means that the binding points are registered when aservice is created. For BPM processes, this registration happens whenthe process is deployed. In one embodiment, this repository of bindingpoints can be persisted and can be available for browsing via a JMXinterface that the console and other tools can use.

In one embodiment, the Alert Manager can provide an API that takes theservice/process name and a rule context that contains the new monitoringmetrics. The alert manager can then look up all the binding pointsregistered for that service or process and evaluate all the rules boundto each binding point.

In one embodiment, in addition to all the information populated atconfiguration time, the rule context can include all the runtime datagenerated by the rule binding. Condition and action evaluators canextract this runtime data and embed the corresponding values in thealerts generated. The following table lists fields that can be availablein a rule context: TABLE 1 Runtime Rule Data in Accordance to anEmbodiment FIELD NAME DESCRIPTION DATA TYPE Rule Name The name of therule that is String currently executing. Binding Point Name The name ofthe binding String point that the rule is bound to. Entity Bound To Thename of the entity with String which the binding point is associated.Entity Type The type of the “Entity Enum Bound To”. Entity URL Thedisplay URL of the URI entity. Data Elements A list of monitoring dataList (e.g., elements and the runtime represented values for the elementsat the as an XML associated binding point. document)

In one embodiment, the rule framework can expose a set of JMX APIs toconfigure rules. These APIs can provide insertion, retrieval, validationand persistence functionality to administer rules. This can allowthird-party tools to directly interact with the JMX layer to administerrules and completely by-pass the WLI 9.0 administration console.

Multiple rules can be associated with a single binding point. Rules canbe executed in the order in which they were deployed. Users can changethis order at any time. In one embodiment, creating a rule involvesassociating a rule with a binding point. For example, two ways of doingthis:

-   -   1. Browsing Binding Points—The administrator first browses all        of the binding points from the binding repository, selects one        and creates a rule associated with that binding point.    -   2. Browsing Entities—In this case, the administrator starts by        first identifying the entity (Service bus service directory or        BPM process viewer) with which he/she wants to associate an        rule. The user is then presented a list of rule binding points        available in the service/process and selects one of the binding        points and creates a rule that is associated with that binding        point.

In one embodiment, each rule condition and action type can define itsown schema to represent the action or condition configuration data. Thiscondition or action configuration is returned to the alert manager asserialized XML and the alert manager can persist this data as part ofthe rule definition. The rule context is passed to each condition andaction type when configuring the condition or action. This allows thecondition configuration mechanism to perform validation to ensure thatthe monitoring data elements available at that binding point areincluded in the condition configuration.

In one embodiment, rules deployed to a particular binding point caninclude monitoring data elements available at the specific bindingpoint. For users that use the WLI console to administer rules, thisvalidation can be automatically performed by the console. The consolecan easily ensure that the data elements available at the associatedbinding are used to construct conditions and actions included in therule.

In one embodiment, a Monitoring Manager aggregates cluster wide metricsfor monitoring data and triggers the evaluation of rules associated witheach binding point for each service/process that has updated monitoringmetrics available. The Alert Manager can first construct a rule contextfor the specific binding point. Then, all the rules deployed to thatbinding point can be fetched and each one can be evaluated in the orderin which the rules are configured. The rule context is passed to eachcondition and action evaluator. If all the conditions in the ruleevaluate to true, the actions included in the rule are executed. A ruleruntime state object keeps track of the result of firing each conditionand action. This information is used to ensure that alerts are not firedrepeatedly for a pre-existing condition that the user has already beennotified of.

In one embodiment, the rule runtime state object is passed to eachaction and condition as well. This object can also define placeholderfor each condition and action to place record data which can be used togenerate a tracking record for each rule evaluated. An alert log entryis generated as a tracking data element that can be included in either adata set. Tracking records can be displayed on the console.

In one embodiment, a routing node provides request/responsecommunication for a message processing graph. It is used to dispatch amessage to a selected service and, if applicable, wait for a response.Since in one embodiment routing is considered part of the primarymessage-path of the service proxy, any received response can used as theresponse message in response processing. In one embodiment, a routingnode includes of a set of routes. A route identifies a target service(e.g., a service proxy or an external proxy) and includes someadditional configuration options that determines how the message can bepackaged and sent to that service. Outbound transformation is a set oftransformation actions that allow the message and context to be modifiedbefore it is sent to the target service. Response transformation issimilarly a set of transformation actions that are applied to thereceived response. In aspects of these embodiments, route selection ismade conditional by any combination of if-then-else blocks and routingtables.

When configuring a route, there is also the option to specify thespecial route called skip. It is simply a route that doesnothing—effectively a non-route. Skip behaves like a route in that itcan be selected and can prevent any subsequent routes from beingconsidered or selected. However, no messages can be sent and noresponses can be expected with a skip route. The skip route has nofurther configuration. The purpose of skip is to allow users the optionof explicitly defining the case when they do not want to route.

In one embodiment, an outbound transformation is used to customize theshape of the message that can be sent to the target service. Thispotentially involves modifying the message itself (e.g. payload, SOAPheaders) as well as transport-specific details such as transportheaders, retry counts, alternate URI, etc. This can be done using thestandard set of transformation actions currently exposed in thetransformation stage. In addition to assign, update and delete, outboundand response transformations can also be able to use conditions,WS-Callout and raise errors.

In one embodiment, a response transformation is used to customize theshape of the response message before it is turned over to the pipelinefor response-path processing. The intention here is that outbound andresponse transformations can be used together to effectively translatebetween the request/response format used by the service proxy and therequest/response format used by the target service. The responsetransformation can also be used to check for message-level faults suchas a SOAP or business fault. If a message fault is detected, it couldraise an error condition, just like a regular transformation stage.

In one embodiment, to perform conditional routing, routes may be wrappedin if-then-else blocks. The conditions can be any Boolean-valued XQueryexpression and blocks can be arbitrarily nested. In a furtherembodiment, the final action is a route or a routing table. In oneembodiment, a routing table includes a set of routes wrapped in aswitch-style condition table. It is a short-hand construct that allowsdifferent routes to be selected based upon the results of a singleXQuery expression.

In one embodiment, a routing table consists of a single where clause anda set of one or more cases. The where clause contains an XQueryexpression and may reference any part of the message context. Each caseconsists of a comparison operator, a value expression and at least oneroute serving as the case-action. Since the entire routing node canresult in one route being selected, multiple routes per case are notsupported. A default case can be added at the end whose route isselected if none of the preceding cases is satisfied.

An example routing table is shown below, although it does notnecessarily represent how the table can presented in the configurationconsole. Route details are also omitted for clarity.

where: data($message/order-amount) comparator value routes >= 100000GoldService route >= 10000 SilverService route otherwise StandardServiceroute

The routing table supports several different comparison operators inaddition to equality. Furthermore, the value expression in a routingtable is an XQuery expression and need not be a simple constant value.In aspects of these embodiments, the routing table is evaluated by firstevaluating the XQuery expression in the where clause. Each case is thenexamined in the order listed by using the selected comparison operatorto compare the where clause result with that of the case's valueexpression. If the comparison is satisfied, then the correspondingroute(s) can be selected.

In one embodiment, message dispatch is performed as part of the routingnode's runtime. The basic execution flow is that first the conditionsand routing tables are evaluated to see if a route is selected. If aroute is not selected, then the routing node is considered complete andresponse processing begins immediately with the current state of theMessage Context. If a route is selected, any corresponding outboundtransformation is then applied to the context. The message is then sentto the service by way of the binding and transport layers. If noresponse message is expected, then the routing node is consideredfinished and response processing begins. Otherwise, the routing node isstill considered active until the response arrives. Once that occurs,the response transformation is applied and the routing node isconsidered finished.

In one embodiment, a batch update feature allows changes to service buscomponents to be made in a “session” where they are accumulated and canbe applied together. By way of illustration, the user (via the console)or process creates a special “batch session” where the changes are goingto be accumulated. The changes made in the batch session are not savedto the “core state”, but rather, they are saved in the session. Changescan be reviewed before “committing” them. In one embodiment, it may notbe possible to commit the changes right away. For example, committing isnot allowed if doing so would result in an invalid “core state” (e.g.,if it creates cycles, causes unresolved references, etc). Assuming thebatch session can be committed, the changes are accumulated arereflected to the core state.

In one embodiment, a batch session keeps track of what components aredeleted, created, or updated in the session data. This data is persistedso that it survives service bus restarts and crashes. The core state isthe main configuration which the server bus is running on. Changes thatare made within a session are reflected to the core state when thesession is committed. Core state ultimately defines the behavior of theservice bus. A session view is the state of the configuration asobserved by someone in a session. Session view is not a physical dataentry. It is derived by taking the core state, and applying the sessiondata to. Batch update is the activity of modifying the service busconfiguration in a session, and then committing these updates.

In one embodiment, a batch Session (or simply session) is thecenterpiece of batch update support in the service bus. Sessions arecreated by users and/or processes. Any number of sessions can be createdsimultaneously. Each session can have a different view of the systemdetermined by the modifications performed in that session. Session datais persistent and can survive crashes or restarts. A session keeps trackof what components are updated, created and deleted by the user. This iscalled the session data. The session data together with the with thecore state defines the session view, e.g., what components are visible,and what value they contain, in that session.

In one embodiment, a session is created by invoking a method on aSession Manager via a SessionMBean. A session can be created by anyprocess using the SessionMBean, or it can be created in the console.Configuration changes (updates, deletes, creates) can be performedwithin a session. The service bus MBean methods that updateconfiguration can be modified to accept a session name, e.g.:

-   -   public void createService(String session, Ref serviceref,        ServiceDef definition);

External clients that use MBeans only have to supply the session name,and the updates performed by that method can be accumulated in thatsession. It is possible that a client performs multiple updates all indifferent sessions. In the following example the Java code updates aservice in session1 and deletes a service provider in session2. Thesetwo sessions can have a different idea of what the configuration lookslike. Session1 can think that the service provider still exists, andsession2 can think that the service has the old configuration.

-   -   servicembean.updateService(“session1”, service1,        newServiceData);    -   serviceprovidermbean.deleteProvider(“session2”,        serviceprovider2);

In one embodiment, a console user enters a session when he creates a newsession, or when he picks an existing session to work in. The same usercan switch between different sessions, and different users can work ondifferent sessions simultaneously. The view of the configuration as seenby a session differs from that of others, and the core state. If a usercreates service A, deletes service B, and subsequently requests a listof services he should see that A is in the list, and B is not. Theactual configuration (core state), however, cannot have A, but can haveB until the session is committed.

In one embodiment, the MBean read methods (such as getters, listmethods, search methods) can accept an optional session parameter. Ifthe session parameter is null the data can be obtained from the corestate. If the session parameter is not null, then a view of theconfiguration as seen by the session is returned. For example, letsassume that the core state contains services B and C. Further assume theuser creates a session, S1, and creates service A, and then deletesservice B in this session, but does not commit these changes just yet.The listServices(String session) method can return different resultsdepending on the session:

-   -   listServices(null) returns B and C    -   listServices(“S1”) returns A and C

The console user sees the core state if he is not in any session. Oncethe user is satisfied with his changes he can commit the changes,subject to validation. Committing applies the changes he has made in thesession to the core state. Once a session is committed it is deleted,since it is no longer usable. The user can also discard a session. Thissimply deletes the session data state, and has no impact on the corestate. The user can leave the session he is currently in withoutcommitting or discarding it. Doing so allows him to see the core state,or switch to another session.

FIGS. 11 a-b illustrate the core state, the session data, and sessionview after various modifications are performed in a session and in acore in accordance to an embodiment. Different geometrical shapes areused to highlight different values taken on by the components. Theshapes with thick lines in the session view indicate that, thatcomponent was modified by the session and thus its existence and valuediffers from the same component in the core state. Shapes with regularlines in the session view indicate that, that component was nevermodified in the session and thus its existence and value is obtainedfrom the core state.

FIG. 11 a illustrates an initial core state that contains components A,B, and C. There has not been any updates in the session, so the sessionview reflects exactly what is contained in the core state. FIG. 11 billustrates an update in the session data. Component B is updated in thesession. This fact is recorded in the session data, and the session datais in turn used together with core state to compute the session view.

FIGS. 12 a-c illustrate additional session scenarios in accordance to anembodiment. In FIG. 12 a, component D is created in the session. Noticethat although D is visible in the session view, it is not visible incore state. In FIG. 12 b, component A is deleted in the sessiontherefore the session view no longer contains component A. A user thatis not in any session however sees the core state and observes thatcomponent A exists in the core state. Finally, FIG. 12 c illustrates thecore state and the session view after two modifications are done in thecore state (possibly due to committing another session): Component B isdeleted and C is updated. These two changes manifest themselvesdifferently in the session view. The update to C is visible in thesession view, since C was never modified by the session. The deletion ofB, however is not visible in the session, because B was modified by thesession, hence, its value is obtained directly from the session data.This case is an example of a “conflict” between a session's data/viewand the core state. Such scenarios arise if the same item is modifiedincompatibly by two sessions. Unless one of the sessions is discarded,conflicts can be resolved when the second session is committed.

In one embodiment, session data is essentially a list of records(information) for all the components that are modified (created,updated, or deleted) in that session. There is exactly one record foreach such component even if it is modified many times in that session(e.g., it is created, then deleted, then created again). This record iscreated the first time a component is updated by the session. It isupdated as further modifications are performed on the same component.The record is removed if all the updates that are performed by thesession on that component are undone. Session data is persisted on thefile system. Notice, also that, the session data is not a snapshot ofthe configuration data as of the time session was create (the serveruses snapshot based session data

In one embodiment, the following provides logic for Create, Update andDelete operations.

-   -   1) Create A in Session S:    -   a) if A was deleted in session then CREATE (update the existing        session data for A)    -   b) else if A exists in session data then ERROR (cannot recreate)    -   c) else if A exists in core state then ERROR (cannot recreate)    -   d) otherwise CREATE (create a new record for A in session data)    -   2) Update A in Session S:    -   a) If A is deleted in session then ERROR (A does not exist in        session)    -   b) else if A exists in session data then UPDATE (update the        existing session data for A)    -   c) else if A exists in core then UPDATE (create a new record for        A in session data)    -   d) else ERROR (A does not exist in core state)    -   3) Delete A in Session S:    -   a) If A is deleted in session then ERROR (A does not exist in        session)    -   b) else if A exists in session data then DELETE after proper        referential integrity checks.    -   c) else if A exists in core state then DELETE after proper        referential integrity checks.    -   d) else ERROR (does not exist in core state)

In one embodiment, read operations give the illusion that the user isseeing the session view (rather than the core state). They do it byusing the session data and the core state. The following logic describesthe implementation of a Read (get) operation in an embodiment:

-   -   1) Read A in Session S    -   a) if A is deleted in session then return null    -   b) else if A exists in session then return its value in this        session    -   c) else if A exists in core state then return its value in core        state    -   d) else return null

In one embodiment, batch Sessions allow users to undo operations theyhave done in that session, in a strictly reverse chronological order.

In one embodiment, when a session is being committed the system canreflect the changes to the core state appropriately. The commitessentially result in a sequence of updates, deletes or creates tovarious components that are modified by the session. In one embodiment,the commit of a session can be atomic. In other words if it fails in themiddle or if the service bus crashes, the changes made so far can berolled back.

In one embodiment, a session can be committed if its commit will notresult in an inconsistent core state. In one embodiment, a commit is notallowed if any one of the following is true:

1) Some of the components that are referenced by a component in thesession are deleted in the core state. This is illustrated in FIG. 13 a.Component is created and references component B that is already in thecore state. Then B is deleted from the core state. Although the corestate is valid, the session contains an invalid reference from A to B.

2) Changes to the core state may generate a cycle of references in thesession view. This is illustrated in FIG. 13 b. Committing such asession would introduce the cycle to the core state, and hence thecommit is not allowed. A cycle is introduced in the following figure byfirst updating A so that it references B. Then B is modified in the corestate to reference A. Although someone looking at the core state can seethe reference from B to A, a user in the session can see both Breferencing A and A referencing B.

FIG. 13 c illustrates Referential Integrity violations due to componentsthat can be deleted. When a component is deleted in a session, thesession manager checks to make sure that there are no references to thatcomponent. After the delete the component is no longer in session view.However since this component is visible to users outside the sessionbecause the session is not yet committed. It is possible that, acomponent in core state is modified to point to the component that isdeleted by the session. Such a scenario means that the commit cannot bedone because doing so would result in invalid references.

4) Conflicting modifications in session and core state. It is possiblethat the same component is modified in a session and also modified inthe core state (due to the commit of another session). For example asession may delete a component, while the same component may be updatedwith a new value. Such conflicting updates can be resolved explicitly bythe user. This issue is explored in more detail later in this document.

5) Conflicting the server change list in progress. Certain operationsperformed in a session result in modifications to the server. Forexample, creating a service usually deploys servlets or Mdatabases.These changes however require a the server lock, and need to besubmitted in a change list (the server calls their sessions changelists). Unfortunately the server does not allow multiple change lists.If there is already a the server change list in progress, service buscan not be able to commit its own changes to the server.

Table 2 lists conflict scenarios and how the system can automaticallyresolve such conflicts in accordance to an embodiment. Notice that thetable also lists three concurrent modification scenarios that do notlead to conflicts because the exact same modification done in both thesession and the core state. The table has four columns. First columnrepresents the original value of a component before it is modified. ANULL value in this column indicates the component did not existoriginal. The second and third column represents the value of thecomponent in the core state and session respectively. A NULL value inthese columns indicates that the component is deleted (or not created atall). The fourth column explains the conflict and describes how theconflict can be resolved. In one embodiment and with reference to Table2, there are three ways conflicts can be resolved by the system, definedas ACCEPT SESSION, ACCEPT CORE, and, in the case of conflicting updates,MERGE. TABLE 2 Conflict Resolutions in Accordance to an Embodiment VALUEIN VALUE ORIGINAL CORE IN CONFLICT DESCRIPTION AND RESOLVING VALUE STATESESSION OPTIONS Conflicting concurrent modification scenarios V Vc VsTwo conflicting updates: The user can resolve this conflict by doing oneof the following: a) ACCEPT SESSION: Commit overwrites value in corewith the value in session b) ACCEPT CORE: Commit preserves value in corestate (effectively throwing away his changes) c) MERGE: merge theupdates in both of them. This requires support from the console. V NULLVs Update in session, delete in core state: Ways of resolving: a) ACCEPTSESSION: Commit re-creates the component in the core state with thevalue in the session. b) ACCEPT CORE: Commit keeps the component deleted(unless doing so results in RI violation) V Vs NULL Delete in session,update in core state: Ways of resolving: a) ACCEPT SESSION: Commitdeletes the component in the core state b) ACCEPT CORE: Commit leavesthe component in core state intact. NULL Vc Vs Two conflicting creates:Ways of resolving: a) ACCEPT SESSION: Commit uses the value in sessionb) ACCEPT CORE: Commit uses the value in core NULL Vc NULL Conflictingcreate and create + delete: In this case the component is created insession and core state concurrently. However, the component is thendeleted in session. Ways of resolving are: a) ACCEPT SESSION: Commitdeletes the component in core b) ACCEPT CORE: Commit keeps the value incore state intact. Non-conflicting concurrent modification scenarios VVx Vx Two updates with same value NULL Vx Vx Two creates with the samevalue V NULL NULL Two deletes never conflict

In one embodiment, an update plan is an object that describes whatactions are to be performed by a server. A change manager that exists oneach server is responsible for executing the actions described in theupdate plan. The Update Plan executed on an admin server may differ fromthat executed on a managed server.

This section gives a very high-level overview of how updates areperformed. It is not meant to be a complete picture of updates andrecovery.

In one embodiment, an update is initiated in the following cases:

-   -   User updates: The user commits a batch update. An update plan is        generated and executed on admin and managed servers. These        updates typically occur on admin server and on managed servers.    -   Managed server recovery: A managed server finds, after a        prolonged disconnection from the admin server, that its        configuration data is out of data. It thus requests an update        plan from the admin server, that can be executed on the managed        server and can bring the managed server configuration        up-to-date. The updates are essentially the “deltas”.

In the case of user updates, the update plan is first executed on adminserver, and if it succeeds it is sent to managed servers simultaneously(and asynchronously) for execution there. In the case of managed serverrecovery, the managed server first sends a digest of all resources thatit knows about and their version numbers. The admin server then comparesthis with is own data and if there are any discrepancies it prepares andupdate plan that can be executed on the managed server.

In one embodiment, the update plan is sent to managed servers using awell-known JMS topic specifically configured for service bus. Eachserver (including admin) has a change manager component that isresponsible for receiving the plan, executing it and, reporting theresult back to the admin server. Each server is responsible forexecuting the update plan it receives. If the plan execution fails dueto an application failure (e.g., an exception, not a server crash), theserver is responsible for rolling it back all the changes that areperformed by the update plan, to the state of the configuration thatexisted prior to executing the update plan. In other words the executionof a plan on a server is atomic. It either succeeds or fails. In eithercase the outcome is reported to the admin server.

It is possible that the updates succeed on some servers, but fail onothers. When this happens the updates on the successful servers can berolled back, or undone. A server may crash during the execution of anupdate. When this happens it has to perform recovery during startup. Inone embodiment and by way of illustration, recovery involves thefollowing steps:

-   -   1) Rollback any local work that has been performed but not        committed. Since there was a server crash, persisted data        (files) need to be recovered, and rolled back to their        before-image.    -   2) Furthermore, if on a managed server:    -   a) Send a digest of the current contents of configuration to the        admin server, and receive deltas.    -   b) Apply these deltas locally to bring the managed server        configuration up-to-date with the admin server.

In one embodiment, an update plan describes changes that are needed tobe applied to service bus configuration. An Update Plan is executed onadmin server and managed servers, and it contains a list of “tasks” thatdescribe individual changes. In one embodiment, there are five types oftasks: Create component task; Update component task; Delete componenttask; Create folder or project task; and Delete folder or project task.In general the update plan first executes tasks to create folders orprojects, followed by any number of component tasks, and ends with tasksto delete folders and projects.

In one embodiment, each task in the update plan provides the followingfunctionality:

-   -   Validate: validate the data that is affected without making any        modifications in the system.    -   Execute: once validated, execute simply performs the        configuration change. Namely it creates, updates, and deletes        stuff.

FIG. 14 is an illustration of update plan execution in accordance to anembodiment. This figure describes how an update plan 1402 is executedand what modules/subsystems are affected. This figure shows three majorplayers that can participate in an update: various Managers in theconfiguration framework that specialize in certain things (1400, 1404,1406, 1408); data structures, such as update plan, tasks, etc.; andvarious stateful entities (1410, 1414, 1416, 1418): These are variouspieces that hold some state. These are runtime caches, persisted data,and other data that is kept by other modules in the system (such asXQuery manager which keeps a cache of compiled XQuery plans).

In one embodiment, an update begins when the Change Manager 1400 gets anUpdate Plan 1402 and executes it. In aspects of this embodiment, anupdate plan is simply a list of tasks 1412, which can be executed inorder. These tasks invoke methods of Project Manager 1404 or ComponentManager 1406 in order to update/create/delete/rename components 1420,folders or projects 1418. Project Manager and Component Manager in turnupdate relevant stateful entities, such as runtime caches 1414,reference graphs, and files 1416. In a further embodiment, file updatesare handled via the File Manager.

In one embodiment, the various modules that listen to updates tocomponent (for example Service Manager) 1410. These modules register forchanges that occur on a particular component type, and are notified whenan instance of that component type is created, delete, updated, orrenamed. Listeners typically update their own internal state in responseto these notifications. For example the transport managerdeploys/un-deploys/suspends/resumes transport endpoints based on changesmade to the definition of a service. These listeners hold state that canbe rolled back when an error occurs.

In one embodiment, in order to facilitate proper recovery the changemanager can persistently record the following facts about the executionof a plan:

1) At the beginning of plan execution, write a record on the disk thatindicates the execution has started. A simple string value such as“STARTED” is enough.

2) After successful execution, write a record on the disk that indicatesthe execution has successfully finished. A simple string value such as“SUCCESS” is enough.

3) After application failure, write a record on the disk that indicatesthe execution has failed and recovery is in flight. A simple stringvalue such as “FAILED” is enough.

In one embodiment, recovery is initiated after an application failure ora server crash. In the first case the update is stopped after theapplication failure and recovery is started immediately. In the secondcase the recovery is performed when the server restarts after a crash.Rollback means undoing the effects of an (group of) operation(s).Whereas recovery implies a more general activity that may involve manyrollbacks, and potentially many other kinds of activities, such asexchange of data between different entities in a distributedenvironment, or potentially redo operations. Nevertheless these twoterms can be used interchangeably.

Suppose some operation OP changes the value of piece of data (e.g.,state) from V₁ to V₂. This operation can be rolled back in two ways: 1)Value based approach (physical rollback): Save V₁ as the before-imagefor this operation, and then revert back to that value when rollingback; and 2) Operational approach (logical rollback): Apply the inverseof operation OP (call it OP_(R)) on the current value, V₂ to obtain V₁.

In one embodiment, both approaches can be employed depending on whichstateful entity is being rolled back. For example, it makes sense to usebefore-images (value based approach) for file updates. This allows crashrecovery to simply replace all affected files with their before-images.On the other hand, in order to rollback state changes that are performedby various managers in response to notifications, we use operationalapproach.

FIG. 15 a is an illustration of a successful update in accordance to anembodiment. In general it is possible that the server may crash during arollback after an application exception, or the server may crash duringrecovery after a server start. The filled circles indicate where thesystem may crash.

In FIG. 15 b, execution fails due to an application exception and in oneembodiment recovery starts immediately. Rolling back the execution of aplan relies mainly on the operational rollback approach.

In one embodiment, when a plan is executed it simply executes each ofits tasks in a sequence. Before a task is executed an undo task iscreated for that task. Notice that this undo task is basically theinverse operation that can be used to rollback the effects of a task. Inaspects of these embodiments, these undo tasks are accumulated inmemory. When a task fails the plan execution stops and the accumulatedundo tasks are executed in the reverse order. For example suppose theplan has three tasks, namely, update policy P, create service S, anddelete XQuery X and deletion of XQuery fails. The following listenumerates what is executed:

-   -   1) Obtain undo task for Update Policy P. Lets call this        UndoTask1.    -   2) Execute “Update Policy P”. This succeeds.    -   3) Obtain undo task for Create Service S. Lets call this        UndoTask2.    -   4) Execute “Create Service S”. This succeeds    -   5) Obtain undo task for Delete XQuery X. Lets call this        UndoTask3.    -   6) Execute “Delete XQuery X”. This fails.    -   7) Rollback is started.    -   8) UndoTask3 is executed.    -   9) UndoTask2 is executed.    -   10) UndoTask1 is executed.

In one embodiment, the undo task for create and delete are delete andcreate tasks. For an update task, the undo task can be another updatetask that updates a component with its original value. Similarly forrename task, the undo task can be another rename task that renames thecomponent back to its original name. The task framework also allowsprogrammers to customize undo tasks.

In one embodiment, updating of files does not proceed in a do/undo styleas the execution of tasks proceed. A task is executed, and in the caseof rollback, its undo task is executed. With files a file update isfirst “prepared”, and at the end of the whole plan execution, the updateis either “committed” or “rolled back” based on whether the planexecution has succeeded. For example suppose configuration files F1, andF2 are to be updated/created/deleted as a result of some configurationchange to components C1 and C2. The following happens:

-   -   1) Component C1 is changed. This causes the file F1 to be        prepared with relevant data.    -   2) Component C2 is changed. This causes the file F2 to be        prepared with relevant data.    -   3) If the whole plan execution succeeds (e.g., commits) then as        a final step we do    -   a) Commit updates to file F1    -   b) Commit updates to file F2    -   4) . . . otherwise as part of rollback we do    -   a) Rollback updates to F1    -   b) Rollback updates to F2.

The following table gives how creation, update and deletion of a fileproceeds in an embodiment. Columns named prepare, commit and rollbackdescribe what happens in those phases. (These actions also apply tocreation, or deletion of folders) TABLE 3 File Operations in Accordanceto an Embodiment OPERATION PREPARE COMMIT ROLLBACK CreateFile(X) AssertX does not Rename X.new Delete X.new exist → X create file X.newUpdateFile(X) rename X → Delete X.old Delete X.new X.old Rename X.newRename create file X.new → X X.old → X DeleteFile(X) Rename X → DeleteX.old Rename X.old X.old → X RenameFile(X, Y) Prepare as if Y is Commitas if Y Rollback as created and X is is created and if Y is createddeleted X is deleted and X is deleted

The commit and rollback operations for files are performed after theSUCCESS or FAILED record are persisted to the LAST_TRANSACTION_INFOfile. This is a design decision that allows recovery after a servercrash during the normal execution or rollback execution (This may or maynot be apparent to you when you dig into the details of the nextsection.

FIG. 15 c illustrates execution failure due to a server crash andrecovery starts after server restart. After a server crash the changesto the persisted data (e.g., files) need to be recovered. In oneembodiment, this can be accomplished by the system as follows:

1) Determine whether the last update was successful or not, using theLAST_TRANSACTION_INFO file.

2) If the last update failed or was in flight (LAST_TRANSACTION_INFOcontains FAILED or START) then we need to rollback file updates asoutlined in the previous section. Basically we search for any filesnamed “X.new” and delete them, and rename all files named “X.old” to“X”.

3) If the last update was successful we may still need to do some work.It is possible that the updates failed after writing the “SUCCESS”record, while still committing the file updates. Thus we simply searchfor any files name “X.old” and delete them, and rename all files name“X.new” to “X”. This is kind of like a “Redo” operation.

4) Once all the files are recovered simply remove theLAST_TRANSACTION_INFO file (or put some empty string in it).

This mechanism allows the system to recover files even if the servercrashes many times during recovery.

In one embodiment, managed server recovery is handled in the followingway:

1) During startup the managed server performs local recovery asmentioned in the previous section.

2) Then it contacts the admin server and sends a digest informationabout the configuration data it knows about. This digest contains theids of all the components it knows about and their version numbers.

3) Admin server compares this digest with the configuration it has anddetermines what components managed server is missing, has out-of-date,or simply should not have. Then the admin server prepares and updateplan just for that managed server which, when executed, can bring themanaged server up-to-date with respect to the main configuration on theadmin server.

In one embodiment and by way of illustration, executing operations in aloosely federated system requires two phase commit (2PC):

1) Each participant (resource manager) prepares the operations, but doesnot yet commit. If the prepare succeeds it sends OK message to the 2PCcoordinator.

2) If 2PC coordinator gets OK from all participants it sends a commitsignal. Otherwise it sends a cancel (rollback) signal.

3) Each participant gets the decision from the coordinator. Whether tocommit the prepared changes, or roll them back.

FIG. 16 shows one embodiment of a system 1600 of the present invention.The system 1600 can include a number of systems 1602. The systems 1602can include information systems such as the BEA WebLogic™ Platform 1604connected to a database 1606, database 1608, packaged application 1610,mainframe 1612, message bus 1614, IBM Websphere™ server 1616, Microsoft™server 1618, SAP™ system 1620, Peoplesoft™ System 1622 and other typesof computer systems. These systems can be hetrogeneous and can usedifferent incompatable protocols.

In the example of FIG. 16, a service bus 1630, which is called anintegration bus in the provisional case, is used to interact with thedifferent systems 1602. In one embodiment, the service bus 1630 includesa service broker 1631, which is called a message broker in theprovisional case, which allows the interaction with the systems 1602.The service broker can queue and forward messages to the systems. Theservice broker 1631 can allows for the interaction of applications andcomponents such that systems can be replaced or made redundant withoutaffecting the higher level enterprise services.

In one embodiment, the service broker 1631 routes the messages based onmetadata associated with the messages, the metadata can be added tomessages by applications using an API. Changing information in theservice broker of the service bus 1630 systems allows systems to beswapped in and out. The services layer 1634 can be updated so as tointeract with a variety of different systems.

The service bus 1630 can convert messages into the different protocolsused by the systems 1602. Adapters can be used by the service bus 1630for interacting with the systems 1602.

In one embodiment, the service bus supports Web Services and uses theprotocols Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML), ECMAScript andWeb Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP). The service bus can use otherlanguages and protocols as well.

Services 1634 can be run on top of the service bus 1630. In one example,the services can be considered to be virtual services for the entireenterprise. The systems 1602 typically have security layers, datalayers, business logic layers and the like. The virtual services canhook into these layers at the systems to provide a virtual service forthe entire enterprise. The services layer 1634 can be written in and useXML-based protocols.

Examples of services 1634 include a virtual data store 1636. The virtualdata store 1636 can allow access to data in the systems 1602 includingdatabases, memory stores, XML pages, and the like. The data store 1638can include interfaces for interaction with the data in the variouslocations of the different systems 1602. The virtual data store 1636 canbe a Liquid Data™ system available from BEA Systems of San Jose, Calif.

The virtual data store 1636 can use protocol such as XQuery. XQuery is astandard query language, published by the W3C (World Wide WebConsortium), that uses XML (Extensible Markup Language) notation todefine query requests and handle query results. XQuery is designed to bean efficient language in which queries are concise and easilyunderstood. XQuery is flexible enough to query a broad spectrum of datasources, including relational databases, XML documents, Web services,packaged applications, and legacy systems. Applications of XQueryinclude filtering a document to produce a table of contents, providingjoins across multiple data sources, grouping and aggregates, and queriesbased on sequential relationships in documents. Joins, in particular,represent a powerful and likely principal use of XQuery in theenterprise.

The services can also include an enterprise security system 1638 forproviding the security for the entire enterprise. The enterprisesecurity system 1638 can allow for the control of the security formultiple different systems from a central location. For example, theuser could be allowed or denied privileges on multiple systems 1602using a single interface of the enterprise security system 1638. TheEnterprise Security System 1638 can interact with the security layer ofthe systems 1602. The Enterprise Security System 1638 can be WeblogicEnterprise Security® available from BEA Systems of San Jose, Calif.

Business processes 1640 are a way of using a structured protocol to dobusiness functions over multiple systems. For example, a discount mightrequire changes to web information, mainframe information, other legacyapplications. The business process 1640 provides a structured way tomake these changes. The business processes can be filtered and reviewedby an IT department so that they are comfortable with the type ofbusiness process change.

The business processes 1640 can be written in a structured language suchas Business Processes Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL). BPELallows developers develop synchronous and asynchronous Web Services andcompose them into a reliable transactional business flow. BEPL defines anotation for specifying business process behavior based on Web Services.Business processes can be described in two ways:

-   -   Executable business processes model actual behavior of a        participant in a business interaction    -   Business protocols, in contrast, use process descriptions that        specify the mutually visible message exchange behavior of each        of the parties involved in the protocol, without revealing their        internal behavior. The process descriptions for business        protocols are called abstract processes.

BPEL can be used to model the behavior of both executable and abstractprocesses. The scope of BPEL includes sequencing of process activities,especially Web Service interactions, correlation of messages and processinstances, recovery behavior in case of failures and exceptionalconditions, and bilateral Web Service based relationships betweenprocess roles. The business processes 1640 in one embodiment caninteract with java programs using BPELJ.

A business authoring tool 1642 can use the business processes 1640 toallow users to create business processes into a workflow including avariety of systems 1602. For example, the user can create a combinationof changes that can be done at multiple of the systems 1602. In one,embodiment, the business authoring tool 1642 provides a user interfacesuch as a form to a user to allow the user to make the business changes.An example of a tool using the business processes is an executivedashboard which allows an executive to interface with data and businessprocesses all over the enterprise.

A business process registry 1644 can be used for registering and makingavailable the business processes 1640. The business process registry1644 allows business processes and workflows to be found by users.

Interface 1650 can be used for interacting with the users. Aconventional web based interface can be used using URLs, HTML andjavascript. Alternately, an interface 1650 that allows for off-lineoperation with an intermittent connection can be used. The interface1650 can use a protocol that allows a user to cache information whichcan be used in an unconnected operation. For example, a user coulddownload an expense report form that allows the user to input expenseaccount information that can be stored into a cache. This expenseaccount information can be seen and manipulated by the user off-line andthen transmitted to interface 1650 when a connection is reestablished.Details of one such embodiment is described in the patent applicationBEAS-01537US1, OCCASIONALLY-CONNECTED APPLICATION SERVER incorporatedherein by reference that describes an occasionally-connected applicationserver, such as a Mobile Application Server (MAS). The interface 1650can connect via a network to a number of users such as a mobile phone1652, a network computer 1654, or a mobile device 1656.

FIG. 17 shows another embodiment of the system 1700 of the presentinvention. The system 1700 includes a number of heterogeneous systems1702. The hetrogeneous systems can run different applications. Anultrastructure 1704 can interact with the heterogeneous systems 1702.The ultrastructure 1704 can including service broker 1706 for theheterogeneous systems and business level services 1708 for theheterogeneous systems. The business level services 1708 can includebusiness processes and business authoring. The ultrastructure caninclude logging and monitoring 1710, a metadata registry 1712 enterprisesecurity 1714, and virtual data 1716.

Liquid Computing can allow for the free-flowing state of information andprocesses where entrenched barriers are removed, allowing IT to connectdirectly to the business. Liquid Computing can have a high compatibilitybuilt into the enterprise fabric, adaptability that takes an active andautomatic approach, and productivity driven by new levels of ease andautonomy.

Using the ultrastructure and/or infrastructure bus, processes andinformation can flow freely across heterogeneous systems, applications,processes, and value chains. The ultrastructure can be cognizant oftheir relationship to the business, with the built-in ability to respondand anticipate. The ultrastructure and service bus can be used foreffective Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA).

In one embodiment, the service bus and/or ultrastructure can allow forEnterprise Compatibility that brings all enterprise ITsystems—applications, databases, hardware, platforms, businessprocesses, Web services—into a common fabric of compatibility thatallows data to be seamlessly exchanged across and outside theenterprise. The service bus can provide the interoperability to ensurethe smooth exchange of data.

The ultrastructure and/or service bus can provide active adaptabilitywhich is the ability of enterprise IT to immediately respond to, andeven anticipate, business demands. The ultrastructure and/or service buscan provide continuous change that doesn't necessarily have to depend onhuman effort—the solutions can dynamically adapt based on what thebusiness needs are. Pre-defined policies can tell the system how toreact, while continuous monitoring and event correlation can define thetiming and the conditions to trigger the business policies. Thesepolicies can be based on meta-data, so they can be easily defined bybusiness users without the need to be translated back into code.

In one embodiment, distributed business events and softwareinfrastructure are highly correlated, actively adapting to changes.Business users can optimize enterprise-wide activities from a singleconsole. Shared business services can be dynamically scaled up or downto meet demands. And new services can be quickly provisioned in order todeliver new capability without disruption. Service brokers canautomatically reroute or adjust to ensure that information reaches itsdestination. Dynamic instrumentation and monitoring can track, displayand manage system capabilities.

Through business authoring, users can modify applications to fit thebusiness—in the language of business—while the solutions are running.There's no downtime, no need for traditional re-programming and, becauseIT maintains governance, no loss of IT control. This can do more thanincrease the responsiveness of the business. It also can eliminates theproductivity gap that exists between IT control and business agility.Where IT once had to inhibit the business in order to maintain control,IT now can becomes a partner to business—a business where both businessowners and IT can reach new levels of freedom and authority.

In one embodiment, a Service broker can be used. Applications andcomponents can be wired together through a service broker so that anypiece can be replaced without changing the other existing pieces; thisfacilitates command and control and mitigates the tendency for latencyin any one piece to bottleneck the entire system. In one embodiment,requests for service, whether humans coming in through the browser ormobile devices, other applications making web service requests, businesspartners requesting services or describing changes in status, an IDEaccessing the Directory services and creating, altering, or deletingcomponents, or a Console being used to view the logging and monitoringinformation and/or view and update the meta-data that drive the systemcan go through the Service broker.

In one embodiment, a metadata registry can be used. Metadata used by theservice broker, as with all meta-data including security information,customization information, personalization information, localizationinformation, workflow configuration information, web service mappinginformation and equivalent sorts of dynamic configuration can live inthe registry. In some systems for some customers such as mobileoperators standard inserts will be things like billing and the billinginstructions will be maintained in the registry. Access to the registrycan use an in-process cache.

Although a diagram may depict components as logically separate, suchdepiction is merely for illustrative purposes. It can be apparent tothose skilled in the art that the components portrayed can be combinedor divided into separate software, firmware and/or hardware components.Furthermore, it can also be apparent to those skilled in the art thatsuch components, regardless of how they are combined or divided, canexecute on the same computing device or can be distributed amongdifferent computing devices connected by one or more networks or othersuitable communication means.

Various embodiments may be implemented using a conventional generalpurpose or specialized digital computer(s) and/or processor(s)programmed according to the teachings of the present disclosure, as canbe apparent to those skilled in the computer art. Appropriate softwarecoding can readily be prepared by skilled programmers based on theteachings of the present disclosure, as can be apparent to those skilledin the software art. The invention may also be implemented by thepreparation of integrated circuits and/or by interconnecting anappropriate network of conventional component circuits, as can bereadily apparent to those skilled in the art.

Various embodiments include a computer program product which is astorage medium (media) having instructions stored thereon/in which canbe used to program a general purpose or specialized computingprocessor(s)/device(s) to perform any of the features presented herein.The storage medium can include, but is not limited to, one or more ofthe following: any type of physical media including floppy disks,optical discs, DVDs, CD-ROMs, microdrives, magneto-optical disks,holographic storage, ROMs, RAMs, PRAMS, EPROMs, EEPROMs, DRAMs, VRAMs,flash memory devices, magnetic or optical cards, nanosystems (includingmolecular memory ICs); paper or paper-based media; and any type of mediaor device suitable for storing instructions and/or information. Variousembodiments include a computer program product that can be transmittedin whole or in parts and over one or more public and/or private networkswherein the transmission includes instructions which can be used by oneor more processors to perform any of the features presented herein. Invarious embodiments, the transmission may include a plurality ofseparate transmissions.

Stored one or more of the computer readable medium (media), the presentdisclosure includes software for controlling both the hardware ofgeneral purpose/specialized computer(s) and/or processor(s), and forenabling the computer(s) and/or processor(s) to interact with a humanuser or other mechanism utilizing the results of the present invention.Such software may include, but is not limited to, device drivers,operating systems, execution environments/containers, user interfacesand applications.

The foregoing description of the preferred embodiments of the presentinvention has been provided for purposes of illustration anddescription. It is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit theinvention to the precise forms disclosed. Many modifications andvariations can be apparent to the practitioner skilled in the art.Embodiments were chosen and described in order to best explain theprinciples of the invention and its practical application, therebyenabling others skilled in the relevant art to understand the invention.It is intended that the scope of the invention be defined by thefollowing claims and their equivalents.

1. A system including: a number of heterogeneous systems; a service businteracting with the heterogeneous systems, the service bus including aservice broker for the heterogeneous systems; and services using theservice bus, at least one of the services interacting with more than oneof the heterogeneous systems.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein one ofthe services is a virtual data system.
 3. The system of claim 1, whereinone of the services is an enterprise security.
 4. The system of claim 1,wherein one of the services is business process.
 5. The system of claim4, wherein the business processes use BPEL.
 6. The system of claim 4,wherein a business authoring tool is run on the business processes. 7.The system of claim 1, wherein the services include aoccationally-connected application server.
 8. A system including: anumber of heterogeneous systems; and an ultrastructure including servicebrokering for the heterogeneous systems and business level services forthe heterogeneous systems, wherein the ultrastucture allows users tointeract with the heterogeneous systems.
 9. The system of claim 8,wherein the ultrastructure includes logging and monitoring.
 10. Thesystem of claim 8, wherein the ultrastructure includes a metadataregistry.
 11. The system of claim 8, wherein the ultrastructure includessecurity for the heterogeneous systems.
 12. The system of claim 8,wherein the ultrastructure includes virtual data for the heterogeneoussystems.
 13. A system including: a number of heterogeneous systems; aservice bus interacting with the heterogeneous systems, the service busincluding a service broker for the heterogeneous systems; and servicesusing the service bus, at least one of the services interacting withmore than one of the heterogeneous systems, wherein the service bus isadapted to reroute which heterogeneous systems interact with the atleast one of the services.
 14. The system of claim 13, wherein one ofthe services is a virtual data system.
 15. The system of claim 13,wherein one of the services is an enterprise security.
 16. The system ofclaim 13, wherein one of the services is business process.
 17. A systemincluding: a number of heterogeneous systems; a service bus interactingwith the heterogeneous systems, the service bus including a servicebroker for the heterogeneous systems; and services using the servicebus, wherein one of the services includes a business authoring tool thatallows a business user to create business processes that interact with anumber of the heterogeneous systems.
 18. The system of claim 17, whereinthe business processes use BPEL.
 19. The system of claim 17, wherein thebusiness processes created by the business authoring tool are filterableby an administrator.
 20. The system of claim 17, wherein the businessprocesses created by the business authoring tool are viewable by anadministrator.